SEAMORE
My love of animals started at an early age.
When I was in fourth grade, I got sick with a severe ear infection. I stayed in bed for almost an entire month. The good part was I missed school. The bad part was every night I was required to sleep with a hot brick pressed to my ear.
This was supposed to cure my ear infection, and it did. Sleeping on the hard brick all night made me forget about the pain from the infection.
Lying in bed, I played with my plastic Palomino horse, Champ. I had fun bending Champ’s legs in directions no plastic horse should go. He broke. I was upset, and whined hard and long about it.
Daddy tied to fix Champ without success. Sadly, I moved on to other toys. Mommy put Champ in a shoebox until I forgot about him. Then she donated him to the Salvation Army® as a “gently used” toy.
Soon after losing Champ, I had my first real pet. It was a small turtle. My brother, Mark, and I named him Seamore. We bought Seamore a little plastic turtle island.
It had a little plastic house for Seamore to sleep in. There was a trough around the island into which we poured water. Now Seamore could splash and play. We expected great things from Seamore. But he was pretty boring.
Seamore ate the dried flies we eagerly tossed him. He swam fitfully in the water on occasion. But most of the time he hid in his shell in his little house. We decided Seamore had a crummy outlook on life and needed cheering up.
We ran hot water in the sink until it steamed. We poured the water into Seamore’s trough thinking he’d like a nice, hot bath. But Seamore shrank back from the water.
He obviously needed coaxing. So I gave him a gentle shove with my finger. Seamore hardly budged. This forced me to pick him up and deposit him in the steamy trough.
We never saw Seamore move so fast in his life. He paddled frantically like a wind-up toy for several minutes. Then he stopped. He bobbed lazily in the water.
Mark and I were delighted, until we saw Seamore roll over and float on his back. Even Mark realized something was wrong. He ran to go tell Mommy.
Seamore died.
We imagined he passed on to some great, turtle island in the sky. Mommy put Seamore in a shoe box. Our hearts were broken. Mark and I cried inconsolably. Then Daddy came home from work. We told him what happened. He told us we shouldn’t be sad because Seamore was in a better place now—one with lots to flies to eat and plenty of cool water.
He said he’d take care of Seamore. Lovingly, he coaxed us away from Seamore’s death scene. We started to feel better and dried our eyes. We wandered off to watch TV. Before long, Mommy was calling us in for dinner. Over dinner, I asked about Seamore.
Daddy said he buried him in the garden. If we wanted, we could have a funeral service for Seamore after dinner. But first we had to clear the table and help Mommy clean up. So Mark and I got busy with our chores. The garbage pail in the kitchen was full. So I gathered up the dinner scraps and took them outside to the garbage can.
I opened the lid. There was Seamore, lying on his back on top of the heap of garbage, his little legs sticking straight up. He looked pathetic.
“Seamore!” I wailed. “Daddy, you lied! You threw Seamore away in the garbage! How could you?” Daddy looked away from me and shrugged. He glanced at Mommy and said,
“Well, it was better than donating him to the Salvation Army®.”
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!CHOICES AND HABITS
One day, while still in kindergarten, it was drawing time. We were drawing our houses. I reached into the communal crayon box on the table. I drew an outline of my house and furiously scribbled in the walls, lost in my own little world.
All of a sudden the teacher’s voice boomed behind me, “What are you drawing? Is that suppose to be a house? What are you, a Mister Magoo?”
The teacher’s condemnation of my drawing devastated me. From that point forward, I was a talentless idiot, convinced I couldn’t draw.
I allowed her criticism to define my artistic ability for over a decade. I couldn’t draw — period — end of discussion. So, I didn’t even try. Then, in college, I consciously chose to overcome my bias. I registered for a drawing class. Well, you know what? I’m no Rembrandt, but I can draw objects that people recognize.
There are many reasons why we develop biases toward our own abilities and characteristics. Sometimes, like I did with my drawing, we abdicate our control and allow other people to define them. At other times we develop these biases through accidental discoveries. For example, we find if we stomp and get angry, the other person gives in and we get our way. So, we adopt that strategy. Often we develop these strategies due to repeated observations. Generally this occurs through watching and absorbing the characteristics of our parents and caregivers.
We see our parents, time after time, respond to situations in specific ways. At very young ages, we assume that’s just the way it’s done. We adopt their habits. As we grow, they become so ingrained that we don’t even question them. We make them our own.
It isn’t until we gain enough awareness of the outside world, typically through friendships with other children who’ve been subjected to different biases, that we start to realize there are other ways.
However, old habits die hard, so we tend to stick with the ones burned into early memory. By then, we feel completely defined, viewing ourselves totally through the lenses of our biases. This is the way we’ve always been and, hence, this is the way we’ll always be.
Some people stay stuck in that their whole lives. They do continue to evolve, but their evolution takes the path of reinforcing their particular biases. They become even more entrenched.
Free will is a divine gift. We always have options, even if we feel we don’t.
Our biases get established early, but if we find they are not taking us to the places we wish to go, then we can choose to change them. We can outright reject them (which is a lot easier said than done) or we can modify them. We can take the good aspects of our biases and craft them in slightly different ways, producing strategies which fit in better with our goals. We use our biases as tools which we can manipulate, instead of becoming enslaved to them.
It’s kind of like planning out your vacation route. You may prefer the freeway to get there quicker, but then you’ll miss some of the interesting spots you’ve always wanted to visit along the secondary highways. So, you pick which ones are of most interest to you, plot your course, and ignore the ones that really don’t hold your interest.
The key is purposely choosing, rather than succumbing to rote habits.
Right now, I choose to go draw another house.
If you're enjoying this over coffee, tea, or whatever, please consider buying me a cup!
