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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

A GREAT WHITE SHARK ON THE BLACKBOARD


A pilot fish swims at the mouth of a great white shark so it can feed off the scraps that fall from the shark's jagged teeth. What is a pilot fish without a great white shark? I'll tell you what a pilot fish without a great white shark is - a pilot fish without a great white shark is a very hungry fish. A starving fish.

Now, imagine the shark was a bit of a silly billy and got a bit greedy and ate up all there was to eat in the sea and there was nothing left. What would happen then? Well, for a while the shark and the pilot fish would feel very fat and happy but eventually the shark would become hungry again and so would the pilot fish. There is nothing to eat! What are the shark and pilot fish to do? Well, it's quite simple. Some of the pilot fish should offer themselves and swim into the great white's mouth while the others remain to eat whatever remnants fall from the great white's gob. Selecting which pilot fish get eaten would be up to the pilot fish but I'd imagine the weaker ones, the ones down the back, furthest from the shark's mouth, would be incentivised to offer themselves first. Persuasive statements like: 'it's time to don the pilot fish jersey' and 'it's your aquatic duty' would be thrown at the weaker pilot fish and, despite emitting little grumbles and leaving a few snarky posts on pilotfish.ie, into the shark's mouth these fish would go. Better to be dinner than have no dinner, right?

Pilot fish are greedy but the great white shark is greedier. The great white shark is the greediest of the greedy and, ultimately, pilot fish respect him for this. Pilot fish wouldn't have to resort to self-sacrifice in times of scarcity if they were as greedy as the great white and not just as greedy as each other. Greed is strength.

Greed is strength and that is what we should teach kids in school. Draw a great white shark on the blackboard and tell the children the truth. Even if it isn't really the truth we may as well say it is because we act like it is. Because we act like There Is No Alternative.

2 comments:

barrymore said...

Well, I must say I like your new colour scheme. Green's probably one of my favourite colours. I think it makes the tone of what your saying seem more sort of..moderate. The old red background its got an incendiary feel about it - if you don’t mind my saying. Its better to go with green. Recently I painted out the living room in green and I tiled the kitchen with green tiles. Then I fancied a bit of a change so I painted the hall stairs and landing a sort of dusty pink, a sort of raspberry ripple colour. But I changed my mind half way through and went back to green. Now most of the house is green and I find it very relaxing. But I’d never wear a green tie. I’m superstritious about green ties

Fugger said...

I was thinking of my old dad when I changed the colour. Funnily enough, he used love his green tie and the colour change is in tribute to that. He had it on him, the green tie that is, morning, noon, and night. Didn't bring him bad luck. He called it his 'lucky tie' and you'd never see him without it.

Of course, no one had the heart to tell him it was just a long streak of dangly snot. Why take what little pleasure the man had from him? He wasn't well. We had to keep him in the shed. Orders from The Mother. She'd have other men in and we'd have to call them 'Daddy'. That kind of behaviour was all the rage back then. It was the seventies. You'd see lots of green ties back then too.