Friday, February 15, 2013

monkeys?

My friend Ben told me I needed more tension in my writing and thus I should write about monkeys. I'm still not sure I get what he means, but who knows, I'll try it.
I don't particularly care for monkeys, and never really have. Perhaps it's something about their similarities to humans yet differences. Or maybe because they don't look very soft. Little monkeys that are less brown and such are more tolerable to me. (I really don't pay much attention to all the different types of monkeys)
However, I also find monkeys a useful analogy for when I think things aren't going very well. For instance, when a place (such as the institution I currently am under) does things that seem as if all higher order thinking has been abandoned, I generally will say the place is run by monkeys. Monkeys have enough abilities to make things function, but lack the higher order thinking skills to decide that some things should perhaps be better organized or even thought through. This is not to say that I think the people working in such places are themselves monkeys and not humans, just that under everything else there must be monkeys. Maybe these monkeys only come out at night and hide under people's desks during the day. I'm not really sure how it works, but to me this is the only logical explanation when there are no logical explanations happening. (I'm a concrete rational thinker as long as we're in either a concrete or rational realm, but when we leave concrete I often go random)
So I also don't care for the monkey exhibits in zoos, nor do I care for stuffed monkeys or toy monkeys or monkey anything. I also abhor bananas, so I find this an appropriate connection. There is nothing good about a banana. Blech. æsj. (that's a fun Norwegian word I learned that means ick) Sometimes I wonder if there's some deep psychological tension or distress or disparity that leads me to my dislike of monkeys. Maybe I have some disconnect in my psyche about humanity and what it means to be human and thus a monkey triggers that. I dunno, I made all that up. But it could happen, I suppose.
I'm fairly certain I did not accomplish the goal or idea Ben had when he said I should write about monkeys, but the moral of this story is that a monkey (in any form, fashion, or state of being) is not a good gift for me and not really a way to try to make friends. Now you know. Take your monkeys elsewhere.
I do like the word monkey wrench though. Because that's a wrench, and I don't know what it has to do with monkeys. It rolls off the tongue nicely, and I like wrenches because they are useful.
Okay, Ben, how did I do? Totally off base?

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