so it goes...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

so it goes. Last Tuesday, my Beta fish Kiwi committed suicide. Why? Although I'll never really know the answer, I like to think that he just couldn't take anymore of the cruelty pervading our little world. Maybe he'd look over at Ruby, the Beta in the next bowl over, and be so overwhelmed with his biological urge to kill his neighbor, his own kind, that it made him sick to his tiny little stomach. As the recently deceased author Kurt Vonnegut once said, "I think a lot of people teach savagery to their children to survive." Darwin 's "Survival of the fittest" proves that the most ruthless and fierce creatures will stick around the longest; that's why we preach this cut-throat attitude to our young. Likewise, Beta fish (aka Chinese Fighter Fish) are naturally inclined to kill each other, to be savage, in order to survive. Throughout time, this trait probably evolved due to heavy competition over a lack of food, or something like that. Vonnegut concluded the previous thought by adding, ""They may need the savagery, but it's bad for the neighbors." I like to think, despite Kiwi's urge to kill his neighbor Ruby, he understood the horrendous implication of such a will to kill and bravely decided to take his own life instead. I can almost picture the scene that took place as I unknowingly slumbered. He mustered up all his courage, maybe released a fishy tear or two, then jumped out of his watery home into the dry suffocating unknown….sigh… …or not. fuck if I know