Being a ferret

[Nicholas The Slide]

This is a creative non-fiction piece i wrote for my Creative Writing class.

Harry Readinger © 2006
Creative Writing
Being a ferret

Nature is full of interesting creatures, all of them unique in their own way, yet the same. They all take each other as they are. They do not discriminate, even against those who are criminal addicts, like the ferret.

Sometimes, I wish I could be a ferret. Ferrets are some of the most criminal creatures in the world, and yet, people excuse them because “it is in their nature” to steal shiny objects, as if they know what the nature of a ferret truly is. Although, interestingly enough, when used as an adjective to describe a human, “…like a ferret” is supposed to be insulting. Isn’t it funny how people use the name of the most cunning criminal on earth to insult other criminals? That is about as insulting as saying “Your such a Tolkien” to a fantasy author. OOHHH that one must hurt. People misconceive the nature of others on a constant basis. Look at the politics in America today. People, who observe such small, albeit public, portions of our President’s life, think they can judge his “nature”. Then some of these people who concluded that the president is an amoral asshole who kills Iraqi’s for oil and to further the wealth of the vice president by signing on Halliburton, who could possibly be the best qualified company to do the job, write about it. Then the people who are looking for information see seventeen publications about the president being an asshole and one about him being a good president (that has been referred to in other articles as being “biased”, “partisan” and full of “lies”) and this person thinks, well, I guess the president is an asshole, and goes along with his day, now with his newfound “facts” about our leader. All this stemming from the short observations of the public like of the leader of our country. Shouldn’t ferrets, whose public and private lives are one in the same, go under the same heat, I mean they actually BREAK the law all the time. But we give them the excuse of “it Is their nature to do that, we, as almighty humans, are above such fundamental and instinctual urges of nature.” I wish I could be a ferret, life would be much easier. I could blame all of my wrong doings on my nature, because, of course that is what would control me.

Another reason for my desire for ferrethood is the way humans lie to themselves, and everyone else, about where problems come from, and why they are around. Animals (not including humans) are the most honest beings on the Earth. They never lie about the cause of things, because they do not allow problems to become deep-rooted like humans do. Ferrets steal because they can, and they want to. They do not need to steal, but they feel a certain twinge within them to take what, to put it in human terms, “is not theirs.” Humans, who are “above” such impure actions as stealing, look at the person who stole and attempt to do a “psychological analysis” of his situation. Then they say something like “Because he was poor, and our economic ‘system’ made him and kept him that way, it is society’s fault that he became so desperate!” Humanity blames everything they can on “society”. Why are there starving people in the desert? Because society keeps food away from them. Personally, my common sense yells something. IT IS A DESERT! DESERTS WERE NOT MEANT TO SUPPORT LIFE! Why should we send food and money to people who will always need more, because their local environment doesn’t give them jack? I wish I could be a ferret, because then I would not blame mine, and others actions on anyone but themselves.