Pandaness
Unlike humans, a panda in the great panda society is not less socio-economically accepted if it asks for or receives help. Peer pressure, money or other goods are non-existant. There are no hierarchies which we perceive, other than old or young panda's, females and males. And there seem to be few panda's alive, which defines how much a panda is worth. As a reference: I don't hear anyone complaining about the lack of mosquitoes on this planet, yet.
As humans we simply value panda's a lot at the moment, because there are few left. A rare commodity in our (egocentric) world. Such a materialistic thought. All of a sudden we tolerate the shortcomings of being in need, of being inefficient, needy and lazy. Whereas in our own society -where there is an over-abundance- we hammer on aesthetics, efficacy and efficiency in every aspect of our overly structured life. Not the panda's though.
Humanness
It is this aspect that I like about them the most. That they intuitively consider the fact that they also need help from time to time and seem aware of it. Their ego is not in the way of their idea of co-existence. Which means there is mutualism between them and the environment. Ironically, we humans might think we live in a society that requires us to be the whole solution and that this is the true goal of education and career building, but in reality we are natural cripples. We need technology to sustain our way of life, survive harsh environments, drive our economy, produce our daily food, design our healthcare and nourish our transportation.
So what can we learn from this great panda that is close to the brink of extinction? At least a few major traits about living with the environment and adapting to it; instead of changing it. Panda's:
1. Do not overpopulate. To the point of extinction even, but leave space for other lifeforms and lifestyles at the same time
2. Are 99 % vegetarian, but used to be pure carnivorous until they realized -more than a million years ago- that there are alternatives
3. Have a yin & yang (or binary) skin color tone appearance, yet predominately asian natives, so no visual bias aside from the entire spectrum between skin color tones. Between 'black' and 'white' as humans sometimes labeled themselves, which makes Panda's great for racially and culturally neutral examples
4. Panda's love to chill out, eat up to 14 hours of unprocessed food per day and not use more space than they need to live in
5. Are cuddly and huggable, but were once dangerous animals protecting their territory
The least we can do, is strive to become huggable.
