No Culling

Thanks to all the readers here from around the world!  I'm honored to have your attention and your company.  I've posted most of the draft material from my original manuscript of my experiences.  I'll continue now with other material from a related project on grieving and hope.  And of course, I'll continue to riff on my current reading.  Thanks as well to those who click on an add once in a while.  Fifty cents here or there in the old PayPal account is a little adrenalin boost to the inspiration gland!

Now for a bit more on We Bought a Zoo.

You may see in the movie, and certainly in the book, that Benjamin Mee resisted culling of the zoo holdings to the last possible moment.  And since he was the zoo director, he tended to get his way.  All the experts recommended that a pair of adolescent vervet monkeys would be removed and killed because they were in the way and not part of a threatened species.  Mee listened to the expert advice and then moved the monkeys to a temporary space.  In the end, they "lived happily ever after" in another zoo, and Mee was vindicated in his resistance.

I don't know anything about zoos.  But I know something about being involved in a death.  I don't want to surrender to death again if I can help...at least not until I surrender to my own death.  I wonder if Mee's resistance to culling--whether it was animals or long-term staff--had something to do with his wife's death.  No, I don't wonder.  I know.  

"Initially, it seemed, this was a continuing theme; I had the impression of being constantly enticed to cull from all quarters, both animals and staff.  Several of our early advisors had recommended sweeping the board, both of a majority of animals (to redesign the collection from scratch) and the staff...But I didn't want to do this.  There was a guiding principle at stake.  There would be no deaths of animals, and no sackings if I could help it, and everything we had inherited should be tampered with as little as possible in order to achieve what we needed" (We Bought a Zoo, page 171.

On the one hand, Mee didn't want to waste time on trivialities.  On other hand, he would not be part of ending anything important.  Yes, I know.

I want to part of projects and organizations and efforts that give life.  If those activities bring something or someone back from the edge of oblivion, so much the better.  This is the real power of We Bought a Zoo.  It is a redemption story.  It is life out of death.  It is about resurrecting a life-giving institution that was really days from non-existence.  We cannot, in the end, save our loved ones from dying.  We will all die at some point.  But we can use our moments and our days to give life wherever possible.

In the coming days, we will talk about the possibilities and realities of what the experts call "post-traumatic growth."  Benjamin Mee is a much better picture of that growth than can be depicted in controlled studies.  He found an end greater than himself, a purpose that mattered, a way to give life in the face of death.  He became more after his wife's death than he could have been if life had stayed "normal."

I wonder if I could find a zoo for sale...