Flea
Moments
“Greater
fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
and little
fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And great
fleas, themselves in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
while
these again have greater fleas still, and greater still, and so on.”
Agustus De
Morgan
If you have an animal
that goes outside, then you know how difficult it has been this year
to keep them flea-free. Liza and I have struggled all summer, made
our way through hundred's of dollars worth of flea repellent, all to
no avail. The combination of mild winter with no deep freezes,
followed by a hotter than usual summer has produced a bumper crop of
fleas. It's been a misery for Liza.
So, fleas were on my mind
this morning when I sat down to write. These tiny irritants can be
metaphors for a lot of life's little aggravations. Persistent
thoughts, for instance, that keep you awake nights, are a bit like
fleas. Murphy's law—anything that can go wrong, will go wrong—is
a human-flea equivalent. When we have a specific place to be on a
given day, and the traffic is backed up for an hour, we miss our
appointment, and then have to drive home in that same gridlock—that's
a biting-flea experience. No, it's not going to kill us, but you have
to admit, it's irritating. Trying to call a business about your
account, a bank, for instance, or an internet provider, and getting
that doggone menu that gives you ten options, none of which is what
you're calling about, and then having the robot on the other end not
understand you're message—“I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Could
you try again.” And then you have to sit through the ten options
all over again. Those are aggravating, time-wasting fleas!
I'm getting worked up
just writing about them! The Taoists would advise us to stay calm; to
accept whatever happens with quiet alacrity. That's the equivalent of
telling a dog not to scratch when fleas are biting him. We humans
have these emotions for a reason—they motivate us to speak our
minds. But here's the deal—we can't allow the fleas to control us.
Speaking one's mind honestly and without rancor, is like a good dose
of Advantix—it calms down the itch to the point that we can behave
sanely. The little irritants in life can ruin a perfectly good day if
we let them. Today, let's not let them.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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