Link to Season 9

between dreams and reality

So close yet so far...

Well, it's the end of November. That's generally when I close the season. So...I think I'm gonna go ahead and close this one. 

I'd wanted to write more entries. Kind of regret that I didn't. But couldn't find the time, and it was a hassle to actually post them since I don't have internet in my place. And what seemed profound when I thought of it, suddenly seemed unimportant when I sat down to write it...er, type it.

Been here two years now. Don't have enough saved up for a down payment, as all the cheap places are gone now. If I liquidated all my stocks and added it to the money I'll have at the end of my contract, I could have a down payment...but nothing left for mortgage payments.

So...gonna stay here another year. Hopefully, be better off then. Kind of excited about staying, though. It'll be the first time staying in a foreign country for longer than two consecutive years. And things are getting easier at my school and I'm enjoying it more. But I also hope it'll have been worth it as far as what I'm trying to accomplish here. That is to say, a future.

When the next season is ready, I'll post a link.

Stuck with you

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Swimming back to the tiger

This was probably my favorite scene from Life of Pi. In the picture above, Pi has just jumped out out of the life boat because a tiger climbed in (like he and the other two animals) to escape the sinking ship they were just on. Back in the water, Pi sees the ship beneath him and there are sharks swimming around him. He has no place to go but back in the boat with the tiger.

Just read...

by Robert Anton Wilson

A Subway by the subway

So, yeah. As the title suggests, a Subway sandwich shop just opened up near the subway station...both of which are near my building. It sounds like a small thing, but in a foreign country, something like that can be really big.

Ugh...haven't blogged in quite a while. Just been busy and have had a lot on my mind. This season only has one more month. I think I had an idea of what to call the next season, but I forget now.

As for my plans...uh..I've had to change them a bit. Housing costs have gone up quite a bit back home so have been investing my money instead of saving it. So far so good, but I'm getting fatigued being out here away from home....like being on the algal island in Life of Pi.

I'm trying so hard to stay in one place, but it keeps becoming this arduous uphill battle and I feel compelled to move. I can't tell if it's my situation or just me that's causing this. ...or both.

Anyway, I'll try to keep this updated. I'd write more now but my iPad is wigging out with the text.

The Lion’s Share

I’ve heard this term get used a lot...I’d like to say recently, but it was probably a few years ago. It was being used on financial shows... “Lion’s share of the market”. Well, if you’ve watched any nature programs on lions, you can get the general idea of the expression.

But I thought about it in a slightly different way. Since I’ve spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time thinking about how and why I’ve ended up where I have...and how/why others have ended up where they do...analogies like “the lion’s share” and ecological niches in general have been helpful in answering those questions.

Now it’s true that I’ve seen Life of Pi recently, so that might be a slightly inspirational contribution to my writing this post, but I actually had the idea turning in my head before I saw that movie (...before I’d even heard of it), and I’ve written a couple posts recently comparing human culture to animals here and here.

Ok, so, the lion’s share. The lion kills the zebra. It gets first bite of the biggest and the best portion of the kill. When it (or they...could be more than one lion) has had its fill, it leaves. But there is still plenty of zebra left. So the hyenas come in next, get a fairly decent share, then the vultures, and so on...until we get to the very tiny critters that clean off the rest.

Why does the lion get “the lion’s share”? Because it’s a lion. It killed the zebra. So no other animal got to it first. With the entirety of the zebra in front of it, it would naturally eat the best part.

Why does the hyena get second pick? Because it’s a hyena. It didn’t kill the zebra. Probably couldn’t if it wanted to. And it can’t push the lion out of the way.

Vultures, same idea. They didn’t kill the lion, and they can’t push the bigger animals aside.

And so forth down the line. All these animals depend on the lion in order to get their meal.

Now I’ve said before that ecological niches are generally not preferred by the animal in that niche. But because of its characteristics and adaptations and competition, that’s where it ends up. Based on this lack of preference, we could personify these animals.

The lion is happy because it gets the biggest and best portion of the zebra. Though, it does get a little irritated that it has to be the one to do all the work to kill the zebra, while the others don’t have to do anything but sit around and wait.

The hyena and vultures may be envious of the lion and its share. maybe they want what the lion has and think that they should be allowed to have the best portion...even though they really lack the characteristics of the lion to do what it does.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. And you can draw parallels as you see fit. Maybe the lion is business, the hyena the government, the vultures...well, I don’t know, whoever else might be awaiting what the lion has made available.

Though...there are problems with using analogies like these. For starters, animals don’t actually have those human feelings of envy and irritation. The lion doesn’t care what happens to the remains of the zebra. Nor is the hyena envious of or thankful for the lion.  All of these animals have to eat, and they do so in the way they are best suited. That’s it.

Personifying the animals as was done above can be helpful in understanding ourselves, our lot in life, and the attitudes we take, but it can also give people a certain vindication for their behavior.

If we were to have these animals act out what people actually do, we’d have a very different picture. If the lion, indeed, got tired of freeloading hyenas and vultures, then you would see it expending energy to chase off the hyenas and vultures, in attempt to keep the whole zebra for itself. “I killed it. I deserve all of it.” It would get into a hoarding mentality...even though it couldn’t possibly eat all the zebra before it went bad.

If the other animals, having been chased off and left with nothing, felt pushed into desperation, they might try...and with enough in numbers, succeed in chasing off the lion and enjoy (for the moment) what they’d taken from it. But they’d find themselves in a bad way the next time they were hungry for zebra.   (…though, perhaps they’d find a new way to acquire food.)

So what’s the take-home here? Well, initially, I was thinking it would be to understand yourself and your place in the world and not complain about it...as the animals don’t complain in spite of not understanding themselves.

But also to not misapply analogies to justify behavior (I guess that one was pretty clear).

Um, and with the animalification of people (opposite of the personification of animals) in the last illustration, we might take home that while nature is red in tooth and claw, animals are not as weird as people.