Whenever someone mentions rats, my brain doesn’t pull up a photo from a nature documentary. Instead, I’m right back in the Berlin U-Bahn, waiting for a train. It’s that familiar smell of damp concrete and electricity, and then, just for a second, I see it—a flicker of grey moving along the tracks. It’s a scene that plays out in cities everywhere, in the alleys behind our favourite restaurants and the basements of our apartment buildings.
Let’s be honest, for most of us, the reaction is instant. It’s a gut feeling, a shudder, that immediate sense of yuck. That feeling is practically baked into our culture, isn’t it? We’ve got centuries of history telling us that rats mean plague, filth, and decay. They’re the ultimate uninvited guests.
Finding Respect in the Grime
But the more I’ve thought about that rat on the tracks, the more my perspective has shifted. It’s strange to say, but I’ve developed a real sense of admiration for them. I see these creatures, universally hated and actively hunted, that just refuse to quit. They are the ultimate underdogs, and they just keep going. It really boils down to a few things for me:
- They are completely focused on their job: And their job is the art of living. They don’t have time to worry about us.
- They are masters of resourcefulness: They can make a meal out of literally anything and build a life from our scraps.
- They couldn’t care less what we think: They are totally unbothered by our fear and disgust; they’re too busy surviving.
Think about it. Their entire existence is a high-wire act without a safety net. Their world is a minefield of traps, poisons, predators, and our attempts to seal them out. Yet, they navigate it all. They learn the layout of sewer systems that would baffle an engineer. They remember where they found food once and where they met danger. In a human world where so many of us are crippled by the need for approval, for likes and shares and validation, the rat is a picture of radical focus. It has one goal—to make it to tomorrow—and it pursues that with a clarity that is almost philosophical.
The Champions of the Overlooked
This is what I mean when I talk about their resilience. They are the champions of the margins, the kings and queens of the places we’ve thrown away. They build entire societies in the spaces we deem worthless: in the crumbling foundations of old buildings, the dark veins of our sewer systems, the hollow spaces inside our own walls. They’ve managed to spread across the entire globe, not by being the strongest, but by being the best at making a home where no one else wants to.
Their bodies are perfectly designed for this life. It’s incredible when you think about it. Their teeth are nature’s own power tools, constantly growing so they can chew through wood, plastic, or even soft metal. Their skeletons are so flexible they can pancake their bodies to squeeze through a hole the size of a coin. They feel their way through total darkness with whiskers so sensitive they can map a room by reading the air currents. They manage to live right under our noses, but we almost never see them. That invisibility is one of their greatest skills, honed over a millennium of being public enemy number one.
A Lesson in Not Caring What Others Think
It’s funny how different cultures can see the same animal in completely opposite ways. In the Chinese zodiac, the rat is number one. It got there by being smart, quick-witted, and opportunistic. It’s a symbol of prosperity and intelligence. Then you have the West, where it’s the poster child for disease and horror movies. The same animal is either a sign of good fortune or a reason to call an exterminator.
For me, the real wisdom of the rat cuts deeper than any one story. It’s about what it takes to survive when the world doesn’t want you around. It’s a lesson in thriving not because you are loved, but because your will to live is just that strong.
A rat lives its life completely unapologetically. It doesn’t ask for permission. It finds a way, or it makes one. So when I think back to that rat on the Berlin tracks, I don’t just see a pest anymore. I see a tiny, furry masterclass in survival. He wasn’t asking for my approval or waiting for my judgment. He was just busy living. And there’s a real kind of freedom in that.
Did you ever think about the rat in that way?
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