The life of a philistine is as prosaic as the life of the sheep from the old Georgian parable:
“the sheep spent its whole life fearing wolves, but in the end, it was the shepherd who ate it.”
Often, danger does not come from circumstances beyond one’s control, nor from people who pose an obvious threat, but from those who constitute the ordinary course of life and, due to their familiarity, are perceived as normal, as natural.
Who is the shepherd in this proverb?
The shepherd is the one who “feeds”, who influences daily routines, who defines the world and one’s perception of it. With their care and boundaries, they protect but also limit possibilities. Perhaps in the wild, such a sheep would not live long, but how different its life would certainly be compared to the routine of “field-pasture-field.” Would the sheep be as “useful” in freedom as it is within the confines of the flock? That is an interesting question, worthy of an answer. And something tells me that the answer depends on the perspective from which it is given—that of the shepherd, the sheep, or the wolf.