But spend any time observing these creatures, and you'll notice something remarkable: walruses might just be living their best lives in ways we've forgotten how to do.
The Art of Unapologetic Rest
Watch a walrus haul out onto a beach or ice floe, and you'll witness a masterclass in commitment to relaxation. These animals don't just rest—they collapse into rest, flopping onto rocks with the kind of abandon most of us only achieve after a particularly exhausting week. They pile on top of each other in great heaps, seemingly unconcerned about personal space, creating what looks like the world's least organized but most contented slumber party.
In our hustle-obsessed culture, there's something almost revolutionary about the walrus approach to downtime. They don't apologize for needing rest. They don't check their phones (obviously) or feel guilty about taking up space. They simply acknowledge their bodies' needs and meet them, sometimes sleeping for up to 19 hours at a stretch.
Community Without Competition
Walruses are profoundly social creatures, gathering in groups called herds that can number in the thousands. While there's certainly hierarchy and the occasional tusk-rattling dispute, these animals fundamentally rely on each other for survival. They huddle together for warmth, protect each other's young, and communicate in an elaborate language of bellows, grunts, and clicks that scientists are still working to fully understand.
What's touching about walrus communities is their apparent acceptance of vulnerability. Young walruses stay with their mothers for two to three years—an exceptionally long time for marine mammals—learning not just to find food, but how to be a walrus. The older generation doesn't rush the youngsters into independence. They understand that some things take time.
The Beauty of Being Built for Purpose
A walrus will never win a beauty contest by conventional standards, and here's the thing: they don't need to. Every seemingly awkward feature serves a purpose. Those whiskers? They're incredibly sensitive vibrissae that help walruses find clams on the dark ocean floor. The blubber that makes them look perpetually overstuffed? It's essential insulation in Arctic waters. Even their ability to turn pink when warm—caused by increased blood flow to the skin—is a clever thermoregulation trick.
There's a lesson in this for those of us who spend too much time criticizing our own perceived imperfections. The walrus reminds us that we're not ornamental. We're built for purpose, for function, for survival in our particular environments. What looks like a flaw might actually be an adaptation we haven't learned to appreciate yet.
Vulnerability as Strength
Perhaps most surprisingly, walruses teach us about the power of showing vulnerability. When they sleep in the water, they inflate pouches in their throats that act as natural flotation devices, allowing them to bob vertically at the surface like mustachioed buoys. They literally trust their biology to keep them safe while they're at their most defenseless.
On land, they're awkward and slow, vulnerable to predators and increasingly to human disturbance. Climate change is literally melting the ice beneath them. Yet walruses persist, adapting where they can, their populations rebounding in some areas after near-extinction from overhunting.
They're not invincible, and they don't pretend to be. Their survival depends on acknowledging their limitations and working within them—finding the right ice, the right beaches, the right communities.
The Takeaway
Walruses won't solve our problems or show us the meaning of life. They're just animals trying to survive in an increasingly challenging world, same as the rest of us. But there's something grounding about watching a creature that's so thoroughly, unapologetically itself.
In a world that constantly tells us to optimize, improve, and hustle, the walrus offers a different model: Rest when you need to. Rely on your community. Trust that your strange features might be exactly what you need. Take up space without apology. And sometimes, it's okay to just float there, letting the current hold you up for a while.
Not bad advice from an animal that looks like it was designed by a committee that couldn't quite agree on what it was supposed to be.
