You know, one time I was at the KC Zoo, back when the ape house was not in ruins, and saw a crowd standing in front of an exhibit.
I thought “hey, there must be something interesting there”, and went over to see.
It was nothing but a chimp.
A chimp, masturbating itself against a section of tree branch, rubbing itself into a frenzy of glee against the bark.
And the crowd was gathered there, cheering it on. Exclaiming with laughter, clapping, and cheers of “Come on, get it up!”, “You can do it!”, “Shake your groove thing!*”, and so forth.
And the chimp seemed almost driven to a higher frenzy by this encouragement from the crowd, and he kept on and on, and didn’t know when to stop - in fact, what reason did he have to stop, really? He had everything he needed - food, water, a place to live, all paid for - and a crowd of slackjawed admirers laughing at him and his antics.
And I watched him for all of 5 seconds, and walked away, disgusted. But even as I tried to ignore it all, the slackjawed crowd kept on cheering, and the chimp kept on masturbating.
And you know, I thought to myself tonight - some people are nothing but the intellectual equivalent of masturbating chimps. They accomplish nothing real or substantial in their lives, content only to benefit from the hard work of and efforts of others. They continue on and on and on in the same manner, contributing a plethora of nothing worthwhile, yet always amusing themselves greatly in the “contributing”.
And living for that ever-present praise - from the crowd, somehow oddly fascinated by the Masturbating Chimp in his little cage.
Thank you. I feel better now.
(There is no spoon…nor is there a link.)
*[sub]It was the early 1980’s, after all…[/sub]
