Deep Thoughts

This one is creative. It will probably inspire some outcry the way the Singh jokes I posted did. But this does reflect the serious (albeit misguided) feelings of some of my colleagues about the Bumiputra situation in Malaysia. Anyway, I hope you will appreciate the creativity, despite the racial undertones.

CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing “its Not Easy Being Green.” Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing “We Shall Overcome.” Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.

Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.” Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act”, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in, (which just happens to be the ant’s old house), crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY:
Vote Republican

A Fishy Problem

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther out into sea. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. So fishing companies installed fish tanks.

They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

Life’s like that

The human mind is fickle. To be or not to be is an epithet that is as applicable to each one of us as it was to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We’re always chasing dreams. It’s good. In order to exploit the best that life has to offer, it is necessary to keep striving and searching for the “more” that we can get out of life.

Problem is, that as soon as we reach our goals, such as finding the right mate, meeting our business targets, getting the right career breaks or whatever else it may be, we tend to lose our passion about it. You no longer feel the need to work so hard as you did when you were trying to get where you are, so you tend to get lax. It’s the same problem with wealthy heirs who never grow up and bored homemakers who get addicted to prescription drugs.

So, how do we handle this? Does that mean, one should be continuously chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Does it necessarily mean that success will bring lethargy and a laid back attitude in it’s wake. On the contrary… like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. Add a zing of challenge to life. It keeps the fizz in and ensures that boredom doesn’t set in.

The Benefits of a Challenge

The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you will enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you will be happy. You will think of your challenges and get energized. You will be excited to try new solutions. You will have fun. You will be truly alive!

How Japanese Fish Stay Fresh

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks! But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged.

Recommendations

Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help. If you have met your goals, set some bigger goals.

Once you meet your personal or family needs, move onto goals for your group, the society, even mankind. Don’t create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

More deep thoughts, anyone?

How about this:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he steals all the ant’s food and leaves the little bugger to die.

Brian

On the same note:

On a cold winters monrning a farmer sees a frozen snake. This kind farmer picks up the snake and warms him up in his shirt. As soon as the snake is warm enough to move he bites the farmer and jumps down. The farmer says “Mr. Snake, why did you bite me, I was trying to save you.” And the snake says “I’m a snake, it my job to bite you” and slithers away.

The end

Deleted. Little boys deserve their fun without being ridiculed by curmudgeons. I’ll save my big guns for when this degenerates into total Ann Landers pablum in, oh… 5- 4- 3- 2…