Who Do You Call about a Dead Badger

Have you ever felt self-conscious…

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of course you have, you’re human (if you’re not human, my apologies for making the assumption that you are… and if you’re human but have never experienced self-consciousness… chances are you probably don’t get offended, upset, or bothered by people making assumptions about you either), and you inhabit a body which is visible to others, and others have a tendency to make you aware that they can see you (you can see them too when they’re seeing you… although not always), and your body, and they think things about you and your physical self (you think things too about them and their physical self… so it balances stuff out… and can cause all sorts of human mess as well).

Have you ever been concerned that people would think something about you (which you don’t particularly want them to think about you), that they would draw some conclusion about who you are (which is not who you are at all… at least, it’s not all of who you are… they don’t have all the facts), that they would make a judgment (a negative one… they’re the ones we tend to notice, and are most prone to making and sharing once we’ve made one) about you based on some external appearance, manifestation, occurrence, happenstance, momentary blip…

At this very instant (and most likely for the entire bank holiday weekend) if you were to drive or walk by (less likely to happen unless you’re a neighbour or visiting a neighbour) my house you would have a singular opportunity to make hasty judgments, come to abrupt conclusions, and generally think negative things about me based on a strange occurrence (which is not that strange at all but it is strange to see it), an external appearance, a happenstance…

there’s a dead badger going through the stages which come after death on the corner where my drive meets the road.

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Above is a pic of its paws… as these days you tend to have to back up what you say online with an image or people won’t believe you (not that it matters whether you believe me or not in this case). I did take pictures of other parts and of the whole, but wasn’t sure of the propriety of sharing those (and if you find it objectionable that I took pictures of a dead animal… you’d do best to forget I exist, avoid me and my online home, rather than try to create me into your image of who someone should be for you to find them and their blog okay).

The title of this post comes from a search term I inputted into Google while trying to figure out if I should notify some local organisation about the dead badger…

I do live close to a badger sanctuary of sorts but no one in particular runs it… and conservation of nature is a big issue in this area… but there are so many groups doing this and that in connection with conservation…

or whether I should just bury it in my garden…

while I was doing my search (thinking my thinks about it), my partner called the local council and the person on the phone said – leave it where it is and someone will be by to pick it up…

but by then I’d already picked it up, put it into a wheelbarrow, moved it to the rear of the property… so I had to return it to where it had been (my partner said something along the lines of – do it when no cars as passing by or you’ll look like a murderer dumping your latest victim’s body – just in case you’re wondering, I did not kill the badger, and if I was disposing of the body of one of my victims I would most likely… not tell you about what I would do or anything about it).

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excerpt via – What’s Your Sign: Badger Animal Symbolism and Meaning

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Another search I did (while not getting any helpful results – there were many unhelpful results – about who to call if you find a dead badger) was slightly more abstract.

I looked into the symbolism of the badger – not sure if the results apply to a dead animal, but there are some animals who only ‘come into your life’ when they’re done living their own. Most animals, particularly wild ones, tend to avoid humans as though humans were a plague, a virus, a bad thing worth steering clear of unless we’re the corpse (and even then we could pose a hazard to them).

Re-reading it now…

considering how I started this post, asking about self-consciousness…

well, the badger kind of says – Stop being self-conscious… at least stop doing that type of self-consciousness which stops you from being yourself and doing your thing.

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while I love the idea of this… people can definitely tell you that you’re doing being yourself wrong

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Many humans have given similar advice to other humans… since time immemorial…

just be yourself…

being someone else isn’t who you’re meant to be or you’d have be born as that someone else…

but it’s easier said and given as advice than it is done…

partly because we all tend to interpret what ‘being ourselves’ means differently…

so the person who told you to be yourself might not like you (or might still like you but may find who you are to be problematic to who they are… or who they are pretending to be) when you decide to follow their advice, and they might then add a proviso such as – be yourself but not like that

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And when you’re truly ‘being yourself’ there’s little to no thought (at least not the kind which has to expend energy thinking about being) involved in the process…

and that’s something which can cause all sorts of self-conscious moments…

you’re walking along just fine and then someone asks you about the way that you walk, or tells you to walk naturally while they film it or capture it in some other way…

and suddenly being yourself walking as yourself does walking becomes difficult… because you’re thinking about something you don’t usually need to think about, you just do it (and not because Nike told you to).

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while this is quite a clever idea (stylishly delivered)… it isn’t always practical, isn’t always doable, and isn’t always realistic in a human world

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So…

what about you

what would you do if a dead badger turned up in front of your house?

Or has anything happened recently of a similar self-conscious stirring scenario?