Life as a fish
What is it like to be a fish? More specifically, what is life like as a captive fish?
From the title of my blog it will be apparent that I have read the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it has definitely influenced the way I think about things and the way I perceive them.
However, I wonder what life is like as a captive fish. I sometimes wonder what they think about when they see this whole world beyond the glass of their fishtank. I wonder if they really take any notice of it. It is said that goldfish have an attention span of 15 seconds, so really, it doesn't matter, does it? Maybe there is the eternal cycle in the mind of the goldfish that there is a moment of self-awareness, realisation, the beginning of a thought, and then a moment of self-awareness.
I do, however wonder in the universal perspective, if humans are much more than goldfish. God says we are, but it does make for an interesting point to ponder. How much is happening on the edge of our perception - and we follow the goldfish cycle from there of on. Only once in a while, we have a Newton, a Da Vinci, a Verne or an Einstein with an attention span of longer that 15 seconds.
Then there must be the frustration of seeing a world out there, which you will be eternally incapable of understanding, that you exist in but you will never be a part of it. I often wonder: If one could assume that man has what I could call a "primal memory", a sort of memory imprinted in our DNA, don't fish have something similar? If so, does it not follow that they will have a memory of open water? Of freedom? Then again... the memory would probably only last for 15 seconds. But imagine having those 15 seconds over and over every 15 seconds of your life.
Also... oh, the sweetness of the first thought of freedom.
Well, so long and thanks to all the fish.
From the title of my blog it will be apparent that I have read the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it has definitely influenced the way I think about things and the way I perceive them.
However, I wonder what life is like as a captive fish. I sometimes wonder what they think about when they see this whole world beyond the glass of their fishtank. I wonder if they really take any notice of it. It is said that goldfish have an attention span of 15 seconds, so really, it doesn't matter, does it? Maybe there is the eternal cycle in the mind of the goldfish that there is a moment of self-awareness, realisation, the beginning of a thought, and then a moment of self-awareness.
I do, however wonder in the universal perspective, if humans are much more than goldfish. God says we are, but it does make for an interesting point to ponder. How much is happening on the edge of our perception - and we follow the goldfish cycle from there of on. Only once in a while, we have a Newton, a Da Vinci, a Verne or an Einstein with an attention span of longer that 15 seconds.
Then there must be the frustration of seeing a world out there, which you will be eternally incapable of understanding, that you exist in but you will never be a part of it. I often wonder: If one could assume that man has what I could call a "primal memory", a sort of memory imprinted in our DNA, don't fish have something similar? If so, does it not follow that they will have a memory of open water? Of freedom? Then again... the memory would probably only last for 15 seconds. But imagine having those 15 seconds over and over every 15 seconds of your life.
Also... oh, the sweetness of the first thought of freedom.
Well, so long and thanks to all the fish.
posted by Nico at 10:03 pm
1 Comments:
Someone - can't remember who - said something like the following:
Life is not lived by the succession of breaths you take, but by the moments that leaves you breathless.
Maybe the goldfish are luckier that way - what would life be if you had a breathless moment every 15 seconds? Or perhaps it is because they are permanently breathless that their attention span is only 15 seconds.
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