Don't Compete With Those Inside The Cage
Inside the cage, food always falls from above.
A small bone, half a fruit—enough to ignite the frenzy of the beasts.
They leap and bite each other, eyes bloodshot, teeth sinking into the flesh of their peers.
Yet outside the iron bars, a hand remains calm, tossing down scraps, and watches a free spectacle.
The sky beyond the cage is vast, the air fresh, yet the beasts inside never truly look up.
Their sight reaches only to each other’s claws, only to the scattered morsels on the ground.
The iron bars are more than iron—they are an illusion, convincing all prisoners that this is the world’s boundary.
Much of human conflict is just like this.
Neighbors turn against each other over a small subsidy, workers sabotage each other for a position, the homeless jostle over trash.
All the shouting and tearing resemble the roars of caged beasts.
They forget that hunger isn’t created by companions, that hardship isn’t a curse of their own making.
Hunger is orchestrated. Hardship is designed.
“Don’t compete with those inside the cage.”
This isn’t about patience—it’s about clarity.
You must understand: the barefoot beside you isn’t your enemy, the one sweating as you do isn’t your foe.
The true enemy is the one holding the keys.
Sometimes the cage isn’t even locked,
yet habitual bowing of the head convinces people they are only meant to fight over scraps.
So they gnaw at the dust until old age, never trying to push the door open.
When you lift your head and see the sky above the cage,
you will realize:
freedom is not winning a piece of meat,
freedom is walking out of the cage together with others,
letting sunlight touch bare skin again.
Don’t compete with those inside the cage.
Learn to see the cage,
and then, see each other.