NoThanks Giving

My current read is way above my pay grade (like that’s hard), as are most of the books on my shelf. The book entitled, The Black Swan, was way too convoluted and way too long but I have condensed what I got from it down to this:

There was this Turkey. The Turkey lived in a turkey coop (which is similar to a chicken coop). Every day from the time it was born the Turkey got fed. The Turkey came to know that it was going to get fed the same food, at the same time, every day. It was a decent enough life for the Turkey. He didn’t have much to worry about except the other greedy bastards he lived with but all in all, life treated him well.

Life in the coop rocked along until that one year. It happened in the prime of his turkey life and on the day before Thanksgiving. The unlucky son-of-a-bitch was selected for the guillotine and you know the rest of that story.

We can analyze the birdbrain’s life story from different angles and make judgments about what the turkey could have done differently to change his destiny. But the Turkey being a turkey, he had no way of knowing the real purpose for his life which was imposed upon him by the turkey farmers before he even hatched. How could he have possibly known this? Those miserable turkey farmers certainly would have never told him that the only reason for his existence was to grow fat enough to be slaughtered and thrown into a deep fryer and then served up to a bunch of gluttonous pigs on the third Thursday of November. After all he was just a turkey and, you know, not the God of Abraham.

The truth is that the Turkey could not know (that he was being raised for slaughter) what he did not know (that he was being raised for slaughter) and he lived a life that was in accordance to what he knew (I am going to get fed).

If the Turkey could have known what he did not know, perhaps he would have come up with some heroic plan of escape. On the other hand, he may have lived all his days inside that coop suffering from a constant state of paranoia and fear. Or perhaps he might have worked a little harder to create his own purpose inside that poultry yard. There is an endless stream of possibilities and opportunities and chances that he could have, and probably would have, pursued if he had only known.

The Turkey never thought beyond the reality that he was experiencing day after day after day. And why should he? His life was well grounded in what he knew. Get up, eat, bitch about the other turkeys, stop at the stop lights, pay the bills, say please and thank you, go to bed. Repeat. This turkey, being somewhat content did not ever stop to consider that there were things he did not know and could not ever know.

The Turkey might not have changed his fate by sitting long enough to consider the things he could not ever possibly know or understand. He could have read all the books, asked all the questions, tried and failed over and over and over again. He could have gone on a yearlong sabbatical with a bunch of Himalayan monks and still gotten his head chopped off. That was certainly possible. Or maybe he could have not done jack shit and been granted a pardon from Donald Trump.

If the Turkey had known his ending was decided upon before he began maybe he could have changed his fate or maybe he couldn’t have. We will never know the answer. But without question, the Turkey sealed his fate and obliterated all other worldly possibilities when he never stopped to consider that there were possibilities that existed beyond his immediate reality.

What are you missing out on and passing up just because you don't know the ending? It is worth considering.

MHC

25 March 2021