life is more than a dress rehearsal

Today’s world spins on returns.  What will you get back from what you invest?  Is your profit margin high enough?  Can you administer yourself and continue to proliferate on your current ratio of input to output?

I’m sick of all these questions.

I spent much of my evening giving meticulous methylene blue swabs and dips to an ailing gourami fish, my Rochester, and working on water quality for three guppies and two snails—Aramis, Porthos, Athos; Hikaru and Kaoru.  All of the above will die at a ripe old age within the next 24 months.  Each will have cost me an average dollar amount that is astronomical in proportion to physical size.  And yet, I find it worthy.

There’s a generosity of spirit and selflessness that comes with keeping pets.  And believe me, this is not me tooting my own horn: at quarter past midnight, measuring pH and mineral content isn’t what I’d call exhilarating.  But it is peaceful in a way because it frees one from the stress of self-performance and into something grander than the webs we humans spin.

And I’m thankful to be untangled once in a while.

Piccolo the Algae-Eater’s perspective on my life