The Lion’s Share

I’ve heard this term get used a lot...I’d like to say recently, but it was probably a few years ago. It was being used on financial shows... “Lion’s share of the market”. Well, if you’ve watched any nature programs on lions, you can get the general idea of the expression.

But I thought about it in a slightly different way. Since I’ve spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time thinking about how and why I’ve ended up where I have...and how/why others have ended up where they do...analogies like “the lion’s share” and ecological niches in general have been helpful in answering those questions.

Now it’s true that I’ve seen Life of Pi recently, so that might be a slightly inspirational contribution to my writing this post, but I actually had the idea turning in my head before I saw that movie (...before I’d even heard of it), and I’ve written a couple posts recently comparing human culture to animals here and here.

Ok, so, the lion’s share. The lion kills the zebra. It gets first bite of the biggest and the best portion of the kill. When it (or they...could be more than one lion) has had its fill, it leaves. But there is still plenty of zebra left. So the hyenas come in next, get a fairly decent share, then the vultures, and so on...until we get to the very tiny critters that clean off the rest.

Why does the lion get “the lion’s share”? Because it’s a lion. It killed the zebra. So no other animal got to it first. With the entirety of the zebra in front of it, it would naturally eat the best part.

Why does the hyena get second pick? Because it’s a hyena. It didn’t kill the zebra. Probably couldn’t if it wanted to. And it can’t push the lion out of the way.

Vultures, same idea. They didn’t kill the lion, and they can’t push the bigger animals aside.

And so forth down the line. All these animals depend on the lion in order to get their meal.

Now I’ve said before that ecological niches are generally not preferred by the animal in that niche. But because of its characteristics and adaptations and competition, that’s where it ends up. Based on this lack of preference, we could personify these animals.

The lion is happy because it gets the biggest and best portion of the zebra. Though, it does get a little irritated that it has to be the one to do all the work to kill the zebra, while the others don’t have to do anything but sit around and wait.

The hyena and vultures may be envious of the lion and its share. maybe they want what the lion has and think that they should be allowed to have the best portion...even though they really lack the characteristics of the lion to do what it does.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. And you can draw parallels as you see fit. Maybe the lion is business, the hyena the government, the vultures...well, I don’t know, whoever else might be awaiting what the lion has made available.

Though...there are problems with using analogies like these. For starters, animals don’t actually have those human feelings of envy and irritation. The lion doesn’t care what happens to the remains of the zebra. Nor is the hyena envious of or thankful for the lion.  All of these animals have to eat, and they do so in the way they are best suited. That’s it.

Personifying the animals as was done above can be helpful in understanding ourselves, our lot in life, and the attitudes we take, but it can also give people a certain vindication for their behavior.

If we were to have these animals act out what people actually do, we’d have a very different picture. If the lion, indeed, got tired of freeloading hyenas and vultures, then you would see it expending energy to chase off the hyenas and vultures, in attempt to keep the whole zebra for itself. “I killed it. I deserve all of it.” It would get into a hoarding mentality...even though it couldn’t possibly eat all the zebra before it went bad.

If the other animals, having been chased off and left with nothing, felt pushed into desperation, they might try...and with enough in numbers, succeed in chasing off the lion and enjoy (for the moment) what they’d taken from it. But they’d find themselves in a bad way the next time they were hungry for zebra.   (…though, perhaps they’d find a new way to acquire food.)

So what’s the take-home here? Well, initially, I was thinking it would be to understand yourself and your place in the world and not complain about it...as the animals don’t complain in spite of not understanding themselves.

But also to not misapply analogies to justify behavior (I guess that one was pretty clear).

Um, and with the animalification of people (opposite of the personification of animals) in the last illustration, we might take home that while nature is red in tooth and claw, animals are not as weird as people.