The Ugly Duckling !

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins writes about lions chasing limping deer — not out of cruelty, but calculation.

Predators don’t waste energy on strength.
They go for what’s already struggling.
And nature calls it survival. Efficiency. Success.

That idea stayed with me longer than I expected. It made me wonder: Am I really the “limping deer” people have decided I am?

Yes, I’m unmarried—but does that make me weak, vulnerable, or somehow easier to prey upon? Or have the people I encountered between 2016 and 2019, and those who followed thereafter—even the ones who continue to do so today—been trying to convince me that I am a “limping deer” because seeing me that way makes it easier for them to succeed?

The Ugly Duckling..
Everyone around him — ducks, hens, even the cat — tells him he doesn’t belong. That he’s ugly. Unworthy. Unwanted.

From the moment he hatches, the duckling was met with mockery and rejection.

Very similar to my story - Society forced me to believe that iam an ugly duckling, a limping deer, so that they could prey on me and succeed.

The duckling left the ones who mocked him — not from weakness, but quiet strength.

He endured Winter. Hunger. Loneliness.
And when spring came, he saw his reflection — and for the first time, he understood:
He was never a duck. He was a swan all along.

The limping deer metaphor also has limits. Humans are not only evolutionary competitors. We are meaning-making creatures. We choose ethics, loyalty, love, artistry, resilience. Survival is only the floor, not the ceiling. And that — that is the difference between animals and human beings.

As Emily Dickinson once wrote,
“A wounded deer leaps the highest.”

So, when God brought order to chaos, He saw me, too.
Even if society excluded me, God never did.
I was always part of His — Chosen, Seen, Included.

Maybe every door that closed, every relationship that slipped away, every moment I felt unwanted — was slowly teaching me how to love.

I was never the limping deer
I was never born to run from fear
I was never what they called me
Never less, never unworthy
They tried to make me small enough
To fit inside their world
But I was only finding out
I was a swan all along

In the 5th Veda called Natya Veda where.

Words are borrowed from Rig Veda,

Music and Sound  borrowed from Sama Veda,

Gestures borrowed from Yajur Veda,

Emotion borrowed from Atharva Veda..

It is often said that survival belongs to the animal world, while human beings are born to experience something greater — bliss.

Yet when society chooses to label me a “limping deer” simply because my perceived vulnerability makes it easier for others to succeed, something becomes clear: they are pursuing desire, power, or advantage—not love, compassion, or bliss.

I want bliss...but the society has always measured me from survival angle.