Paradox – “Something that is made up of two opposites and seems impossible but is actually true or possible.” ~ Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
Those that hunt and fish are a prime paradox. We seek out and kill the thing we love and revere.
How we can destroy what we love is something too deep within us to be easily explained to a non hunter or fisher.
We spend countless time and money to nourish and expand habitat, to aid in multiplying and improving a population. Then harvesting only the best in size and quality, while returning the small to home waters or passing up on a lesser animal in the forest.
To the outsider this taking or leaving philosophy is confusing, yet to us it’s part of the paradox. We go afield to take yet we pass on most. We want more of which we seek but ultimately take few. Selective in our harvest, taking only what we need and are not wasteful.
Then when the kill is rendered we feel both sadness and pride. Sadness for a life taken by our own hands yet pride in accomplishment. Sadness not to be confused with remorse and pride not to be confused with arrogance. Again a profound paradox.
Indigenous people believe in what they describe as the “circle of life”. Once one has taken from nature you are no longer an observer but a participant, part of the circle of life. Paradox. ~ Wade Pennell