Ilearned something from a flock of ducks the other day. I was on my phone, andwent to sit down on a bench near where they were sleeping.  The closest ducks were maybe 10 feetaway, and they ignored me. Once I sat down, a couple of ducks 12 feet away decidedI was threatening and flew away, squawking and making a lot of noise. Within 5seconds, the entire flock had flown to the opposite side of the lake.  My initial concern was how I hadmanaged to frighten the ducks further in the flock and not the ones on theoutside. Learning to nonchalantly frighten ducks at a range could havelimitless potential for my amusement and could also be applied to obstruct myposition, should I ever be attacked by a prop plane.I was immediately struck with aproblem. I had never considered a flock before. What’s a flock? It’s acollection of bodies that has momentum but lacks reasoning.  This isn’t to imply if ducks moved asindividuals they would be capable of quadratics or great works of culture. I’mjust saying that when ducks flock, the flock doesn’t think about what it’sdoing.                  Ofcourse, ducks aren’t the only things that flock. Geese flock. Sparrows flock.Fish flock, but we call them schools. We flock.                  Weflock because flocking is easy. Ducks draft behind the ducks in front of theflock, and moving in a flock doesn’t require that one fends for itself. Flocksare easy for us because they don’t require any thought to participate.                   Thequestion for us is what does our flocking mean? In terms of consumerism, itmeans that we make the owners of Abercrombie and Fitch a mint and are contentto have our various elements of clothing and pool supplies squirted into moldsby some child in the most obscure province of China so long as our overhead islow. In terms of ethics, it means we’ll place an inordinate amount ofconsideration on which functional adults other functional adults choose toshare a bed with. In terms of politics, it means that we will listen to manufacturedissues as opposed to real solutions to real problems. In terms of the self, wewill look for survival and comfort and nothing further. We will exist in jobsthat we hate simply because that’s where the money is, and every night we go tosleep we’ll have to kill the idea of what we could have been. In every term, wewill sacrifice a bit of our humanity to keep from thinking.                  Butwhat about momentum? When birds flock, it simply means a number of bodiessitting or flying or eating at once. With the introduction of culture, flockingbecomes a bit more complex. At some point during the mid-nineties, we decidedthat ridiculously large cars were things worth having, and without thinkingwe’ve flooded the market with inefficient machines and stalled research of moresustainable cars. In a spectacular instance of groupthink, we invaded Iraq in2001; a country which is now widely known to have had nothing to do with theattacks perpetrated against the United States, had no nuclear capability, andis a shining example to those abroad that Americans are terrible at geography.As I speak, many of us spend our lives in the pursuit of meaninglessplastic-formed trinkets and simple comfort. Our current election is a battlefor the most-parroted set of buzzwords, change versus Joe Sixpack. Any sizeableflock’s momentum changes the world in which we live. They are our backdrop.                  Thegood news is, we can change this. Be an individual. Breaking from a flock justrequires that you think. Look at what you’re doing. If you think you about whyyou flock, you cease to flock. All that we need is a little introspection andaction on that introspection. Want something that means more to you than a niceshirt or a beer. Chase it down and take it.Humans aren’t meant to flock; we’remeant to be individuals. A flock can’t achieve anything great. What we need nowaren’t mindless droves. We need to progress. If we continue to flock, we’renever going to become what we can be. If things continue the way they’re going,we will all get to see how far down the rabbit hole goes. Climb out.  Look around.