The Zero Sum Game
Hmmm, can we summon thewill to correct our course while time is still on our side?
The calendar has rolledover to September and summer is unofficially winding down on this holidayweekend. Technically the last day of summer is September 22. But for most of usthe Labour Day weekend is the threshold.
September always has thefeel of a restart given that the new school year begins. My last day ofuniversity was 40 long years ago. But the restart state of mind still prevails.This year’s restart has more of a feel or normalcy to it with most of the pandemicprotocols removed – although two Ontario universities are stubbornly stillimposing the face mask mandate on their students.
The Monarch Butterfly, as seen at the top of this post, is as enduring a symbol for fall as we are likely to find. Monarchs are staging now for their epic 2,000 + mile migration to their wintering grounds on a mountaintop in Mexico. Their departure this year is more poignant as they have were recently designated an endangered species.
Giving the state of theworld these days, I wish that I could tag along with the Monarch migration. Hanging out on a balmy Mexico plateau for the winteris very enticing. But if I did so, I might not have the motivation to make thereturn trip and re-enter the fracas.
Butterflies, of course,are a metaphor for metamorphosis (pardon the alliteration). Moving through thepupae stage to the caterpillar stage and finally to adult stage, they epitomizethe need to evolve over time. Life does not allow us to stand still. We mustcontinuously adapt to the changing world around us. But it is becomingincreasingly difficult to do so.
How do we adapt to aworld that is increasingly fractured and at odds? The concept of living inharmony is a preferred state that is nearly impossible to achieve now.Increasingly, humankind, by some malicious force, is forming battle lines onnumerous fronts.
The principle of livingin harmony is being supplanted by the principle of discord. Pick one side orthe other, we are told, and act accordingly. If I am not on your side, I amyour enemy. If I adopt a neutral stance, I become the enemy of both sides.
In this scenario, theremust always be winners and losers. Winners take the spoils and use them to consolidatetheir position. Losers slink away to lick their wounds and regroup for anotherassault.
I am of the belief that the principle of discord, and the dynamics that feed it, is a zero sum game. There is no state of peace or rest in the equation. There is only the state of hyper readiness for the next assault.
I hope we do not see the extinction of the Monarch butterflies. If we do, it could be a harbinger of our own approaching extinction as a species that lost its way in the universal changing of the seasons. There is still time to correct our course. But it requires relinquishing and banning the I Win – You Lose mentality.
~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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