Me & My Goldfish

Right now as I type this message on my Compaq laptop, above my laptop I have a shelf that holds a 10 gallon fish tank. In the tank, the water is clean, crisp, and serene and the gold fish inside appear to be swimming in air. Yesterday as I took a minute to reflect on my life and the life of others around me, I gazed unconsciously at the 9 fish swimming in the tank. Then a thought surfaced on my mind like a jellyfish surfing on beach sand that said: "Supposing I was to leave that tank with no means of cleaning filtration for about a year, what would happen," I pondered.

Then, shortly thereafter an idea popped in, poof, like a puff of white smoke streaming from a genie's lamp. In the tank is various sizes of gold fish from 3 larger one, 3 medium size and 3 small ones. I then imagined watching, over time, the effects of the uncleaned and unfiltered water that would eventually develop in the tank. I imagine that soon, few months would go by, 3 fish dies, leaving me with 6 "healthy fish." Another few months, 2 more started becoming delusional and paranoid, saying and doing things which didn't make sense, thereby freaking out the remaining 4 fish. Seemingly unaffected and not phased, the 4 remaining stigmatize, ridicule, and medicate the 2, labeling them sick, crazy and ill. Months go by, the tank is getting worse, no one around to clean it, another of the 4 remainders fall ill; leaving only 3. 2 of the 3 still remaining, they decide to investigate, mistakenly concluding as doctors that its cancer and begin to do extensive research and paid studies to discover the brain of the ill fish are malfunctioning and showing signs of disease. They have the information "correct," because the studies say so and science support it. Their religious beliefs support it, too. “Those other fish were just crazy and out their minds,” they say.

Oblivious to the danger looming, with nowhere safe and clean to go, the 2 remaining fish come to realize it's the environment, which made them ill, warnings they ignored as politicians they now feel helpless and overwhelmed. For nearly a year, the water became saturated with “emotional pollution,” produced by the gold fish themselves and their wasteful habits and greed, which polluted the environment even faster. The reason the 2 lasted that long was not because of their financial status, and titles as psychologist and psychiatrist, but only because there was a black algae eater inside the tank with them, eating up as much as the emotional waste and contaminates as he was able.

Now supposing one of the bigger stronger gold fish realized this, but nothing could be done as their environment and all the "warnings" they ignored, finally killed them; all accept the ‘black algae eater’ who recycled much of what he could until outside help came along.