Let the Young Man Go Out and Hunt
“Let the young man in his desperation go out and hunt.
If he kills the elephant, his poverty ends.
If the elephant kills him, his poverty ends.”
This raw and poetic expression—often attributed to Nigerian actor Pete Edochie—speaks volumes about the human condition in its most desperate form. It’s not just a proverb. It’s a mirror held up to the lives of millions who wake up each day with nothing to lose but still choose to try.
The Elephant and the Hunt
The “elephant” is not always a literal beast. It’s a symbol of anything massive, intimidating, or seemingly insurmountable—poverty, systemic inequality, personal failure, hopelessness. And the “hunt” is the struggle. The relentless grind. The daily risk of venturing into a world that has given you no assurances, only threats.
For the desperate, risk is not a choice—it’s a necessity. Inaction guarantees continued suffering. Action, however dangerous, offers at least the possibility of something more.
When Desperation Becomes Strategy
In societies where safety nets are thin or nonexistent, the poor must often take leaps the comfortable will never understand. They migrate across deserts, cross oceans in fragile boats, take jobs that may kill them, or rise in rebellion against oppressive systems. All of it is a kind of hunt. Because staying where they are is a slow death anyway.
This phrase doesn’t glorify death. It doesn’t celebrate suffering. It reveals it.
It lays bare the cold calculus of desperation: if you win, you escape. If you die, at least the pain ends.
What We Must Learn from This
For those of us not facing such extremes, this quote is a call for empathy—and action. If a young man must risk his life just to survive, we must question the systems that force such a cruel choice.
- What are we doing to lift barriers for the desperate?
- Are we creating opportunities—or just telling people to “work harder”?
- Do we recognize the courage it takes to even try, when failure could mean death?
Conclusion
Let the young man go out and hunt—not because it’s noble to die trying, but because it’s disgraceful to make people choose between death and dignity. Let this phrase haunt us, move us, and above all, drive us to build a world where no one has to kill an elephant—or be killed by one—to escape poverty.
