Contemplations of a Strange Mind, Day 1
Creating and sharing cool ideas is really fun… this one is about Fish
I love to play around with ideas. To observe something, and just ask Why? To follow the line of questioning and my wonderings and imagination as far as I can get…
After getting my internet back this week… and thus being revitalized by a low-information diet… I realized that I would really enjoy my time on the internet more if I put more stuff out. If I share my thoughts… just because, why not?
So to do that I figure I’ll just start with my latest ruminations…
Today, well… a lot of days since my dad thought it a good idea to adopt a fish from a neighbor who had two big ones that were too much even for her sizable tank…
I stare at this fish and wonder how his life is like.
I imagine myself communicating with the fish even…
Empathizing with the sorry bastard..
I say, “Jeff”, my sister thought it hilarious if she named him Jeff (he’s an Oscar, btw)… so I look at this fish, sitting in a 30 gallon or so tank in the midle of our dining room… I look at Jeff… and wonder…. “WTF, man?”
Subsequently (cool transition word haha), here are a bit of my contemplations when I study Jeff, the fish.
Fish tanks… that arent fish tanks: building a house for my fish in my mansion(s)…
Fish are probably the most abused and terribly cared-for ‘pets’ in the animal kingdom … or rather in human society.
We essentially enslave these creatures to live in tiny little boxes for their entire lives, feed them pellets of dead stuff and then beat on their tanks to when we’re bored… just cause.
We doom them to devolve into dumb, starved, eternally bored and uninspired creatures just …. well.. because we can.. as most of us cant even afford to get *pretty* fish to look at.
Folks just want a pet, perhaps for the decor.. for the ambiance.. to not seem totally lonely… or whatever… but in the end, fish are hands down the most useless pets. But we get them anyways because its easy…
Kid wants a pet? Get a fish.. it moves and they can ‘learn responsibility’
Fish dies? Get a new one, most of em look the same anyways… or perhaps
Bored with your fish? Get a new one, watch it eat the old fish, or just enjoy the new look for a few seconds.
Few of us rarely ever take the time and effort… and money.. to *really* take care of our fishies… we dont change the tank water every week on the dot, or even ensure its fresh. We dont clean the filters every month, and we especially dont check to make sure the water temperature and ph level is just right for our stoic little useless moving meat… pieces of the sea.
We dont take care to carefully proportion the fish food to make sure it doesnt eat too much or is eating enough or is actually enjoying the food.
But for the few of you who do in fact consider themselves great fish owners or keepers….
Congratulations…
You are certifiably delusional.
The problem here, even if you do your damndest to make sure your fish is living the good life inside their fish tank…. Is that we still keep them trapped in the watery hell of a viewing box….
Imagine how you would feel if you were forced to live in a glass house your entire life… maybe taken out a couple times in a smaller closet-sized room then put back in.
No matter how well you were treated…. youd most definitely be a daft and miserable lifeform.
And in fact, research shows that fish who have been raised in confined spaces are far .. well… dumber.. than their wilder cousins.
In fact, fish are measurably less intelligent the more time they spend cooped up in a box… or even in a large pond or pool.
Without the frequent stimulation of ever-changing water currents or obstacles or circuits or whatever to swim through and about… fish will devolve into stupefied dolts. Its so bad that even if you release a wild-caught fish back into the wild after a few years of captivity… it will most certainly die within the first month… the thing may even inadvertently kill itself due to not even knowing how to swim upstream or escape from predators.
We humans take hella advantage of life, but gotdamn how can we call ourselves sentient or conscientious or kind people if we go around systemically, generationally, and happily destroying the lives and minds of fish everywhere. … Like a bunch of ignorant psychopaths…
Who are we to cast another lifeform into purgatory just for own apathetic pleasure?
…
.
.
.
…
WTF?
What is this?
Why is this man… this ‘kid’ really, talking ‘bout fish?… Did he really just write an essay about keeping fish?….
Is keeping pet fish really that bad of a problem?
Is what you may be asking yourself right about now…
Honestly…
I dont know…
Perhaps this is alluding to a bigger issue… perhaps this isnt about fish at all…
Perhaps it is… and yet perhaps it is also an extended analogy for a more.. prescient problem… Perhaps….
I dont know…
But I do have a solution for the fish problem at least…
Or at least some really cool ideas I want to implement in my own house(s) when I get enough money to partake in the slavery of fish…. what a privilege eh?
Anyways, how about we lose the box, and build river-like enclosures?
We have plastics nowadays that are far more pliable and versatile than glass, and I am sure there are polymers that are compliant with the regulations of safe/humane fish tanks. Either way, make fish habitats, not fish bowls…
If I were to feel good about my part in lawding over captured or farm-grown fish, I’d at least give them some unique waterways to entertain themselves with.
Plus how entertaining would it be to see your fish swim and play all around the house?! Make sure your fishies have friends and you can then witness for yourself the complex communication and societal patterns of non-bland fish!
Even if you cant build a winding waterway replete with obstacles, real water fauna, and a running water… at least have the decency to deck out a large tank with interesting obstacle courses and artificial currents (in the way of lil hand-built pumps and pipes to swim through). Twould be a great DIY project for the whole fam or for a boring weekend!
Not to mention you’d have the *dopest* fish pad to show off to your friends…
Cuz thats what we really do this for right? We partake in the wholesale destruction of another lifeform…
To make us look good and feel good… And we chalk up any negative consequences to ignorance and impotence…
Oh Im hypoallergenic so I cant have a ‘real’ pet.. I *need* fish…
Oh I cant do anything about people poisoning entire ecosystems and kidnapping exotic fish just so that I can have prettier room decor… Since I cant do nothin bout it, may as well get one myself and just remember to feed it right.
Oh I cand do anything about the corporations that grow millions of fish in bland farms like they’re a bunch of crops… so I may as well support the cause.. so what the fish end up too dumb to survive, they’re just tryna help!
Oh I didnt know how bad the problem was…. but I cant do anything about it anyways so theres no point in knowing more…
Oh they’re just fish… they dont really have emotions or care about their predicament…
Oh they’re just fish… they’re not worth the effort to do all that anyways…
We dont *really* have to care…
We dont care.
Perhaps that is the real problem here…
.
.
.
The least we can do… is entertain our fish.
Well that escalated quickly…. haha… but twas fun. Let’s see how long a streak I can keep with this new approach…
OH, and here are some much more apt essays on fish: http://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animal-issues/companion-animals-factsheets/fish-tanks-thanks/
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140916-how-do-you-entertain-a-fish
