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“Modern man has transformed himself into a commodity; he experiences his life energy as an investment with which he should make the highest profit, considering his position and the situation on the personality market. He is alienated from himself, from his fellow men and from nature. His main aim is profitable exchange of his skills, knowledge, and of himself, his “personality package” with others who are equally intent on a fair and profitable exchange. Life has no goal except the one to move, no principle except the one of fair exchange, no satisfaction except the one to consume.”
― Erich Fromm
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The quote above describes the A team rather well.
Those Alpha dog personality types who think and feel (especially when they think their feels) that they’ve got this thing known as human life sussed and can play it to win… because it’s a competition, right?
They work so hard to prove that their way is not just the right (and righteous) way but the only way… which you’re supposed to take too (they’ll nag you about that, don’t worry if you missed it the first five hundred times they said it), but they’ve made it into a gauntlet run for you because… that’s what the A team does.
They climb the ladder to supposed success (it will lose the ‘supposed’ once they’re done hyping it) and cut the rungs off so others can’t take the same route.
They had to work hard for what they got (even if they didn’t they’ll convince themselves that they did and believe their story – you’ll believe it too once they’ve battered you with their version of their life and rags to riches story) – so should you (only you’re going to have to work harder if you’re trying to get what they got if they have a say in it and are the Dungeon Master).
I’m exhausted just thinking about it… I’m glad I’m not one of them because being one of them must be so tiring… or did I mean tiresome?
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“It gets tiresome being spoken to as if you are a child, even if you happen to be one.”
― Patrick Rothfuss
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I tried being a member of the A team awhile ago and flunked that test several times. Sometimes I wasn’t even aware that I was taking a test – that’s how difficult their tests can be.
Whether I was aware that I was being tested or not was irrelevant. I couldn’t survive on that little sleep or those high levels of daily stress, it made me into a complete mental case… the monogram on the mental briefcase didn’t make it seem elegant or a desired status or state to be in.
One cup of coffee a day I can handle, maybe two is okay as long as many hours (using old style math) pass between them, but more than that is too much for me.
I’m a grasshopper not an ant.
But I am the kind of grasshopper who listened to the lecture which the ant gave, took what it said on board, felt guilty for and ashamed of my grasshopper ways. Vividly felt and saw (on the powerpoint presentation which it showed me and which I couldn’t avoid seeing as I was a guest and it was the host) the error of my ways compared to someone else’s ways (the ant’s ways) which were perfect. Tried to change who I was… failed miserably… and finally went FTS… I’m a grasshopper why am I trying to be an ant just because the ant told me that being an ant was better than being a grasshopper… why did the ant seem so against being a grasshopper…
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“…an obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.”
― Mark Barrowcliffe
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And why didn’t I get a second opinion (preferably not from an ant) about this matter?
So I asked a bumblebee about it…
but that bumbling bee didn’t have time to answer.
For all the noise they make,
especially when you happen upon a bumblebee tree (the tree pictured below, when I came upon it, was covered in bumblebees)…
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or have a bumblebee hive in your house (we actually have two of those – one in the porch over the front door and one out back high up in the eaves)…
bumblebees aren’t interested in lecturing other insects (or humans) about their lifestyles.
I did some work on my house right next to one of the bumblebee nests, they were swarming around the entrance to their hive while I worked… nothing to do with me, just doing their thing (they do this even when I’m not there)… they were completely disinterested in me and what I was doing.
Had it been a wasps’ nest or ants’ nest… they would have been minding my business for me and chances are things would have got bitchy and stingy.
I have always (since that kind of awareness dawned on me) appreciated the fact that for a bee to sting you they have to be willing to die for it…
maybe we humans need a bit of that…
if we risked death for stinging others we’d be a bit more careful…
mind you, knowing humans…
we’d be extinct by now if we died when we ‘stung’ others…
partly because sometimes stinging others is worth more than staying alive.
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“Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo—which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn’t a stupendous badass was dead.”
― Neal Stephenson
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Even though, with hindsight, it may not be…
a bee doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight, but a human does… all of the time even if they don’t survive their act someone else can learn from it.
It’s part of the lesson plan which comes with being human,
living the being human experience,
from learning curve of going around in a circle,
doing the same things which our ancestors did before us (only we think we’re new and improved and doing something totally different),
sometimes it’s soothing to do that, familiar territory over and over, comforting and safe…
sometimes it’s vicious, familiar territory over and over, uncomfortable and unsafe…
buzzing away
creating buzzwords for it all…
An Upturned Soul 
That was unique and inspiring, I had never considered myself an insect before and although I presume I am currently trying to be an ant, a grasshopper sounds enticing. Or perhaps a caterpillar, after all I am currently on a huge learning curve from being a student to being a contributing, functioning, valued member of society; I like to think of it as a transformation rather than a trek or race. That while I was a student, even a post grad student, I was being told to follow, told to trek and find perfection. Instead of being told to be myself. To explore who I want to be.
Thank you for the inspiring post!
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Thank you very much 🙂
The Ant and The Grasshopper is one of Aesop’s Fables – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper – therefore it’s part of a set of tales used to teach humans certain values.
What we learn from those kinds of stories passed down from generation to generation isn’t always what was intended for us to learn, depends very much on how our mind works, what our perspective is on the story told, who is telling us the story, why they’re telling it to us and wtf is going on with civilisation at any given moment.
I read Aesop’s Fables when I was a child and some of the stories stayed with me – I always liked the Grasshopper even though I think that maybe I was supposed to like the Ant more, or at least embrace the Way of the Ant over the Way of the Grasshopper.
I love your perspective of “I like to think of it as a transformation rather than a trek or race.”
There’s a meme/popular quote I’ve seen about the caterpillar which I think is very apt – Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
Keep exploring who you are and want to be – and discover where those two selves meet 🙂
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I work a few physicians who are type A from birth! I am certain they are. So different. So savant. So brilliant. But they pay a high price as most physicians don’t have a long life span.
But this line stung me the most:
“if we risked death for stinging others we’d be a bit more careful…”
Oh, if we could only!
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
I think that there are a fair amount of people who do think before stinging, who are careful, they tend to be the ones who ask themselves how they’d feel if they were on the receiving end of what they’re about to say or do, who use intelligent empathy. As for the ones who don’t, some mellow over time and others that’s just the way they are and it’s up to the rest of us to avoid their stings, deal with them intelligently if we can and not get so sore that we pass it on. More often than not when people sting you it’s due to them passing on the pain they’re already feeling.
Human nature is an intriguing puzzle.
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Yes. Agree.
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A very thought-provoking piece of writing accompanied by fantastic photos; this post deserves my ‘like’ and your blog deserves my ‘follow’.
Have a great day! 🙂
Yousuf
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Thank you very much 🙂
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This post reminds me of the story I told you when I got stung by a wasp for throwing rocks at it’s nest. I reflected on it after revisiting. I don’t why I did it, I just did it. No one told me to do it or not to do it. I don’t even know what the point for doing it. I think I knew they were dangerous at the time, but this may have just been an embedded memory after the outcome. I shared the story with my housemate and he admits taking a stick to a hornets nest even knowing they were dangerous. Is it something embedded in our human nature to pick up a rock or take a stick to a hornet’s nest to see the outcome? I really don’t have answer to that.
I remember eating an ant once too. One of those big red ones. I dunno why I did this either. I just did. We usually grow out of this phase. Narcs don’t.
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Sometimes we just have to find things out for ourselves. There’s an urge to discover independently… we’re also all a bit bored by the whole ‘nanny state’ way of life where everyone else is telling us what to do and not do.
It usually only takes us one experience to learn things and move on to the next lesson… although when it comes to narcs, we usually have to experience their stings repeatedly until we stop poking and eating that sort of thing 😉
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