Rabbits in a rat race

We all know how the rabbit lost to the tortoise. Some say slow and steady wins. Others say the rabbit wasn't interested. A few note that consistency matters. Many lessons from one fable.

When I think of the rat race, I recall a line from The Last of Masters:

Rats in a maze. Doing tricks. Performing chores thought up by somebody else.

Humans always live in mazes. Freedom is choosing which maze to run.

We're like rats, scurrying through structures built by others, chasing goals that might not be ours, confined by invisible expectations.

In capitalism, the rat race is relentless productivity and endless striving. The maze is engineered around profit margins, hierarchies, and advancement. We perform our routines without questioning who built the maze or why.

Yet many now aspire to be different. Call them rabbits—those who want to escape, innovate, redefine success on their own terms. They seek meaning beyond traditional metrics.

But here's the problem: rabbits are still racing. They're still in a maze, just a shinier one. They've created a meta-maze of personal brands, impact metrics, and optimization. The rat race simply becomes a rabbit race. Same desperation, better vocabulary.

The irony? Rabbits weren't meant to race. In nature, their strength isn't just speed—it's knowing when to run and when to sit still. The rabbit in the fable didn't lose because it was slow. It lost because it forgot why it was racing.

Perhaps the question isn't how to become a rabbit instead of a rat. It's why we assume racing is inevitable. The maze exists because we keep running through it.

Maybe there is no outside. Only different mazes, each with its own architects. The monastery has a maze. The commune has a maze. Even rejecting society entirely is its own maze with unspoken rules.

Freedom isn't escaping the maze. It's choosing your maze with clear eyes, understanding who built it and why, and accepting that you're still running. The difference is consciousness. The difference is being aware you're a rabbit in a rat race and making peace with that paradox.

The tortoise never tried to be anything other than what it was. Perhaps that was the lesson all along.