Two bucks battle it out for the position of harem master. Ooops, their antlers get locked together and they cannot get them apart. They are not clever enough to cooperate in eating and living and so die unnecessarily early. Serves them right, we might say. "They shouldn't have invested in such unwieldy tools in the first place", even though it was a long line of genes that did it and not the poor two victims. Should have learned to settle their difference with a hand of pinochle or a simple coin toss.
We can similarly pride ourselves that we are daring enough to live without protective houses on our backs like turtles and tortoises. We don't have such a burden and we rely on our ingenuity and mental powers to find or make shelter as needed. Hurray for minds and human intelligence!
Then we come to cyberchondria, the noticeable result of Binging and Googling our symptoms and concluding that we have Dutch elm disease or some other malady. That phenomenon is increasingly impacting on medical practice (and similar internet-induced half-baked attempts to mimic professional practice and knowledge in quite a few other fields, I imagine). When you add in fear of zombies and human vampires, plus all the forms of mental illness and anguish, I think we might view antlers and turtle shells with more respect and appreciation.
We can't help it, you know. Just as antlers can become locked and shells can serve to limit as well as protect, we bear our minds. I write that those Lindt truffles of dark chocolate are divine and suddenly your tummy craves them. We are influenced by our thoughts and memories and the conversations and signals we get from each other. Maybe we should spend more time just playing pinochle or flipping coins.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
