A woman I know very well shared with me recently enough the most traumatic memory of her childhood: A robin crashed into the window of her house, lightly stunning itself. The then seven-year-old girl, filled with compassion for the bird, ran out to save it. She picked it up and held it tightly in her hands, taking it inside to try and save it. She did not realise that birds, unlike mammals, breathe using their chest muscles, and that squeezing them will suffocate them. She killed the poor bird, and for years since, has woken up at night with guilt.
There’s a moral there about human nature, I think: The worst outcomes often result from good intentions.
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