January 9, 2015

Bucket of Eels, an analogy

  I know my posting has been lacking in the recent past and I apologize.  One reason is that I am having a hard time tiring to get my head around the events of the recent past and how to make sense of them. Too much to for one to comprehend each issue individually, too much to handle all at once.  There has been, police murders at the hands of racists, protests, betrayal by our elected officials (Congress and the election of our overly tan Speaker), attacks by Islamofacits in France, and the creation of a new Federal program, MyIRA, by the Executive Branch (uhhhh???  Unconstitutional!!!!)....the list goes on. 

  Just how is one to deal with all of this at once?   Well one cant.  In my political/ philosophical thinking I have come up with the concept/analogy that it is like "A Bucket of Eels"; slimy, always in motion, each eel blending with the others, at any one moment any one eel (issue) can not be seen completely.  The issue or eel hides behind others intertwining in the total slime of its environment. Try to grab any specific eel out of the bucket and chances are you will come up empty handed and covered in slime. (The progressive rely on this!!!)

   I remember a family friend we would visit by boat, my family and I  crossing the Great South Bay
from Long Island, NY to his residence on Fire Island.  This gentleman whom was retired, seemed ancient to me as teen and was as "Salty" as the day was long in summer.  I remember him prepping eels he had trapped for market.  He would prep his hands with sand, reach into the bucket and expertly remove a live squirming eel and stun it by throwing it against a board. The stunned eel would then be expertly gutted and skinned in one fluid motion; a single cut and a pull resulting in  the head skin and organs tossed to the waiting sea birds, the silver grey eel prepped for market.

  So as for my analogy its pretty simple to see how politicians, activist and the media are represented by the eels, but how to deal with them is best represented by the old Long Island Fisherman.  The sand on your hands is your philosophy, it provides for your grip on the issue; one must have a firm grip on the issue.  Does one have the ability to grip every issue/eel all at once?  No, but once you have a grip, stun the issue with irrefutable facts and quickly skin it showing its true inner structure, repeat until the bucket is empty.  Apply as much sand as necessary and repeat until the bucket is empty. 

 
Skinning eels may be difficult but the results are delicious...