The Fish Tank
For years I had a 30 gallon tropical fish-tank and about six or seven beautiful tropical fish. One of those tall glass tanks that sat in my apartment, cast a gorgeous blue light and bubbled soothingly. Any time one of my fish died, I would walk down the street to the pet store and pick out another one to add to the tank.
On my way back to the apartment, clutching the plastic baggy with my new pet fish, I would stop off in a sushi place and grab a sushi lunch to go. Then, as I was integrating the new fish into his tank, I would feast on assorted sushi.
I did this because I felt it echoed the absurdity and folly of life’s arbitrary assignments. One fish was meant to enjoy my artificial ecosystem. The other was meant for processing by my small intestine. I felt this ritual had importance as a spiritual reminder. As a process of opening my eyes and remaining both humble and silly in the face of my petty attempts to give order and classification to nature’s chaos.
I felt it was important to always remember the random happenstance that leads to such arbitrary designations among living creatures. The absurdity that can elevate certain fish as “pets” and certain fish as “food.” And to never forget the siliness and ultimate folly of humanity’s attempt to create artificial order through regulated PH, soft water, filtration and food pellets.
I bring this anecdote up to remind myself that goofy fratwanks crashing hot sorority sister parties are simply arbitrary fish. Fratwanks can find themselves privileged by arbitrary placement into an invisible ecosystem that provides everything they need. Or they could be served up on a small slice of warm rice meant for digestion.
In an economic world rocked by happenstance, we are all either in fish tanks or being served up by a sushi chef. We privilege some. We process others. Fish-tank or sushi. We must endeavor to remind ourselves of the eternal recurrance of these sorts of outward projections as the means by which we understand what we think of as “the real.”
Oh, and this fratwank is a douchebag.
