Bullfighting - Part One

While in Guadalajara last month on business, I watched a bullfight on live TV. It was a brutal thing to witness. It was also spectacular and memorable. It caused me to think deeply about life and fighting.

The bulls are raised to be killed. And truthfully, there is some much deserved controversy about that fact, not to mention the brutality of the event. Regardless, this has gone on for centuries... it is what it is. The bull is taught to fight, raised to fight, and honored during the spectacle of its regal death.

A part of me loved it. Of all the animals that humans kill on a daily basis, this one has a chance to kill the human. And that happens occasionally. The chicken we eat, the hamburgers we consume, they don't come from an animal that had a chance. They all just get slaughtered. So it was nice to see an animal with a fighting chance.

One is a hundred bulls actually live. If that bull fights with outstanding toughness and cunning, the judge will blow a horn, make the matador stop, the crowd goes wild, and the bull is nursed back to health and restored to life. And the best part? The bull is sent to a pen with bunch of lovely cows to breed for the rest of its life. The male offspring used for bullfighting.

I see so many life correlations here that I need to stop and think of how to write about it.