My Two-Cents: The Turtle and the Whore
Sure you’re familiar with the story of the turtle and the whore hare, but in case you were recently hit over the head with a bible, here’s a brief refresher:
It all begins with a race. Two competitors, unequally matched in every way: the turtle and the hare. The hare’s a cocky bastard – brilliant, sure – but cocky nevertheless. His cockiness is not unwarranted. Statistically, he is far faster than the turtle. In fact, if you remove statistical outliers (the hare is going through a divorce and has turned into a raging alcoholic and unsuccessfully robs a carrot farm [ironically owned by a turtle] prior to the race beginning, thereby revoking his eligibility to participate, etc.), there should be a zero probability that the turtle will ever win. It’s the equivalent of a 1v1 matchup between LeBron James and a blindfolded baby donkey with skates on its feet. Now, the turtle (assuming that he’s not a blatant narcissist) realizes that his odds of winning are not just improbable, but for all intents and purposes: impossible. This begs the question: why did the matchup ever occur? This might as well be part of a some new government initiative to bridge the gap between reptiles and mammals. Neither the turtle nor the hare have any say in the matter. They are just going along with the flow – what everyone else is doing. The turtle and the hare are spending an abnormal amount of effort into being normal, and fitting into everyone else's predicated story of them – the turtle and the hare. The most abnormal thing about this predicament is how normal their response is. We all end up fitting roles that don’t fit. As the absurdist Albert Camus once said, “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” In this context – nobody realizes how much we are all like the turtle and the whore. Sincerest apologies, I meant hare (I did not).
Does the turtle even want to run the race? Maybe the turtle hates running. Maybe the turtle is more into the Peloton and would rather skip the whole rendezvous in general. The turtle knows he’s not a runner – he’d much rather play to his strengths. Or at least something he enjoys, for Christ sake, which is not running. Maybe the turtle has some unknown, underground talent he’d like to use but can’t because he got signed up for this goddamn 5k next weekend. Maybe he’s secretly a card shark and would much rather spend his post 9 to 5 on the poker table. Why can’t he? Why does he have to expend so much effort to merely be “normal”.
Does the hare like to beat the shit out of the turtle? Don’t you think he’d derive a little more fulfillment from picking on someone his own size? And if this isn’t the case, don't you think he’d derive more personal benefit from spending his race time with his therapist instead. These are the million-dollar questions no kindergartener reading the turtle and the hare has the balls to ask. But they are, nonetheless, the questions we need to discuss now.
The turtle and the hare, much like the majority of us, are expending a tremendous amount of energy to fit into someone else's story. They don’t want to race each other. But here they are, lining up on their Saturday morning, waiting for the fun to start just so they can go round and round in a pointless, mathematically inexplicable race. In reality, the turtle and the hare just want to be themselves. They’re tired of playing into everyone else's shenanigans. The turtle just wants to be a turtle – a creature that should be slower than the hare. The hare just wants to race someone in his own league. Now it’s time for the ending of this story that no kindergarten teacher had time to finish (because let’s be real, 5-year-olds don’t have very long attention spans.)
The turtle and the hare are lined up, tired, annoyed, and ready to go. They figure the sooner they get started, the sooner they finish and get to go home. The whore (my bad, apologies yet again) hare glances leftward with a wistful look in his eye. Simultaneously, the turtle matches the sentiment with a penitent look of his own. The gun fires but neither of them moves. The minimum wage gun-shooter/race-worker yells “Yo dipshits, you guys gonna race or not?” The crowd boos at first, then loses attention and begins to clear out. The turtle and hare continue the stare in a deadlock. After some time, the gun guy decides he’s not paid enough for this and goes home. The turtle and hare break the silence in a hug. Neither of them wants this. They were just scared of what would happen if they didn’t race. That’s what everyone told them to do! But it turns out no one really cared that much in the first place. After all, the gun-guy and crowd have already dissipated. No one really cared that much about the race in the beginning, and the attention disappeared as fast as it appeared. The turtle asks the hare what he plans to do with his day now:
“I don’t know. But not this. I’ve spent many Saturdays expending a tremendous amount of energy merely to be normal. I think I’m going to try to make up for all that wasted time by just being myself. You have a lot more energy when you're not using it to blend in. What about you?”
“I think I’m going to laugh too hard. I’m gonna laugh so hard at jokes I find funny that I cry. Then I’m going to think about how sometimes when my sister laughs really hard at a joke she cries. Then I’ll probably call her and see what she’s up to. And then tell her I miss her. And not feel bad about being sappy. Then ask her if she remembers the time we spent the day at the beach collecting sand dollars. I forgot about how fun that is, maybe we’ll go drive and do that. Why not, after all.”
**Turtles and Hare Cannot speak human, but I’m pretty sure this is what they could say if they could speak — so all text experts should not be interpreted as my opinion but rather purely objective fact
