Greed

A couple of weeks ago I put a bird feeder in our garden, not far from a dining room window. It quickly became quite pop-ular and I have learned that the little flyers can go through a lot of bird feed in a short time. Just a few minutes ago I was watching a few of them. (I have not yet made a serious attempt at identifying the different species. Most are grey and brown hued and smallish: sparrows, thrushes, an perhaps the red-winged blackbird...) Just as I was thinking to myself, my, these birds are getting bigger and fatter, boom, one of the recently porked up gluttons flew right into the window. Drunk on the seed! Is this a case of too much of a good thing? I was wondering that myself the other day as I spooned up on one of Leo's almond-coconut-chocolate chip ice creams. What happened to those new year's vows to slim down and get in shape? The year had started off so well in that regard... Will I ever get it right?

Is greed universal? Surely we can overcome it to some degree. Maybe the question is, can we overcome it to a sufficient degree? (In the photo, a song sparrow.)