Mudcat
yap
- Since
- Jan 27, 2010
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- 32,603
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I had a thing at work yesterday where this fly kept landing on me, and I would wave it away, and it would be back 2 seconds later. I figured if I kept swatting at it the second it landed, at some point it would get tired of this endless tango and move on to more relaxing pastures, but no, it kept landing on me. Seemed like it might go on forever.
Then I started to think about it. I was not teaching the fly a lesson. It was teaching me one.
Was it really that bothersome, this fly? The answer was no, not really.
It's like I have been conditioned to think that I am supposed to be terribly put out by the fly - but when I really analyzed it, it was not a big deal. It didn't hurt, it didn't itch. It was such a minute sensation to get so preoccupied with.
I just stopped and relaxed. The fly landed on my hand which was resting on my work bench. I watched the fly. It crawled around, back and forth between my hand and the bench.
It was cute. Compact little winged organism just doing, like me, what it is programmed to do.
Again, it certainly didn't hurt. There was nothing really bad about the sensation.
Is it possible this little fly had come straight from a climbing a piece of shit to my hand? I suppose so. But I am not as put out by that thought as many people in our germphobic times. I grew up as a little dirtbag camper communing with every kind of nature. I don't expect the world to be sterile. If the extent to which flies are unsanitary is dangerous, I would have been dead a long time ago.
That aside, if I was worried about that kind of thing, I would be more worried about shit molecules all over the public bathrooms and various door handles etc. But I don't worry about that stuff either.
I decided that I would go forward in life, less concerned about flies. Let them land. Who cares? Not me.
PS - the fly went away almost immediately after my decision. I don't consider that any kind of poetic outcome to this parable. As far as I'm concerned, the parable was over before this PS. But it happened to be true.
Then I started to think about it. I was not teaching the fly a lesson. It was teaching me one.
Was it really that bothersome, this fly? The answer was no, not really.
It's like I have been conditioned to think that I am supposed to be terribly put out by the fly - but when I really analyzed it, it was not a big deal. It didn't hurt, it didn't itch. It was such a minute sensation to get so preoccupied with.
I just stopped and relaxed. The fly landed on my hand which was resting on my work bench. I watched the fly. It crawled around, back and forth between my hand and the bench.
It was cute. Compact little winged organism just doing, like me, what it is programmed to do.
Again, it certainly didn't hurt. There was nothing really bad about the sensation.
Is it possible this little fly had come straight from a climbing a piece of shit to my hand? I suppose so. But I am not as put out by that thought as many people in our germphobic times. I grew up as a little dirtbag camper communing with every kind of nature. I don't expect the world to be sterile. If the extent to which flies are unsanitary is dangerous, I would have been dead a long time ago.
That aside, if I was worried about that kind of thing, I would be more worried about shit molecules all over the public bathrooms and various door handles etc. But I don't worry about that stuff either.
I decided that I would go forward in life, less concerned about flies. Let them land. Who cares? Not me.
PS - the fly went away almost immediately after my decision. I don't consider that any kind of poetic outcome to this parable. As far as I'm concerned, the parable was over before this PS. But it happened to be true.
