---
title:       I Am Not a Fox
last_update: 2021-12-03
unlisted:    true
---

As a child, I wanted to be a bird.
I had watched Disney's *The Sword in the Stone*, an animated film set in medieval England about an orphan called Arthur who meets Merlin, a wizard.
Merlin decides to become Arthur's tutor and teaches him various lessons in a quite unconventional way -- by turning him into a fish, a squirrel, and eventually a sparrow.
The idea of being an animal, and specially a bird, was incredibly fascinating to me.
How would it feel to have such a completely different body?
To feel my feathers bristling in the wind as I'm flying through the sky?
To be perceived by other creatures not as a human but as a bird?
I was 6 years old at that time and to this day, the desire to be an animal never left me alone again.

As I got older, it became clear to me that my experience was far from usual.





Therians are individuals who believe they are an animal on some level, either spiritually -- such as past lives or souls -- or psychologically.
It sounds like the perfect answer to my question, but after looking into them it didn't resonate with me.

I can't bring myself to say "I *am* a fox" in any serious context because I know I'm not one.
A fox wouldn't be able to type on a keyboard or come up with this text in the first place.
A fox couldn't have a job as a software developer.
A fox wouldn't look in the mirror and see a human.