My brother and I are trying to “hunt” a mouse. We’ve placed bait in front of the door, in hopes that while it’s eating it will get scared and it will run outside. It never runs outside. Why does it never run outside? It stays in the cabin with us, it knows we’re watching it and we know it’s watching us. It’s given freedom only 5 inches away from where the bait is and every single time it gets scared it runs back into the corner. What compels the mouse to run into the corner? It can’t be stupidity, that does not do the mouse justice. Maybe it’s true and genuine fear? Fear in the most basic sense. The mouse knows what’s inside, it has its home, it has the place it likes to hide. It has us, it knows and understands the threat we pose, but in that way we are safer than going outside, to the mouse. Certain death inside the cabin seems safer than the threat of freedom and all of the possibilities that come with it. We will kill it, whatever is outside might kill it. It has decided which possibility it wants. It has chosen to die in the comfort of its home instead of live in the threat of freedom.