Proverb Unmasked
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and he can feed himself for life.
Well that’s a load of baloney. There are far too many variables to be true. Too many if, buts and maybes.
Has anyone considered that there may not be fish in the polluted waterways anymore? They’ve been poisoned by mercury or smothered with algae. Eaten by the introduced species that is inedible. But wait, I hear you cry, there’s fish farming to bring us tasty morsels. Salmon and trout, doped up to the eyeballs in antibiotics, given chemicals to make their flesh pearlescent pink while they swim, fin to tail in their own excrement. Mmm tasty.
Where’s the river. I’m sure it was here yesterday. Although… The mining company has been blasting up stream in recent months. And weren’t the government building a dam to produce power for electricity so the population could cook fish they can no longer have access to. Even a beaver colony succeeded in rerouting the waterways leaving the poor bugger stranded on the sand flats of his hungry life.
The sea seems unruffled, the waves barely a ripple, such a lovely time to be on the water. Try paddling out in your canoe through oil slicks and throwing a line or net. The only catch would be dead, slimy and smelling rank enough to turn the strongest stomach. Does vomit float on oil? Discuss.
Have you noticed the change in the weather and how the seasons aren’t like when we were young? The storms seem more violent, the floods disrupt the tidal flows. If the worse comes to the worse, man could wait for the signs of a forthcoming tsunami, where the sea recedes leaving the fish flapping and gasping to water to flush their gills. Grab as many fish as possible and then run like hell before the dark, solid wall of water destroys all in its wake.
We haven’t even touched upon equipment and aptitude. With AI, tok tok and all the other distractions, who’s going to sit still and peaceful for minutes, hours waiting for the fish to bite or swim into the nets? Humanity seems to have an attention span of a goldfish and with the deterioration of writing skills I imagine the ability to tie a line or fix bait on a hook would be beyond most. Will the nets and lines purchased on line form Temu be up to the task or will they break at the first pull of the bite? So many questions, yet to be answered.
And man. Why is it always the man? Women make up over fifty one per cent of the population but nobody bothers about teaching them to fish. They have to work it out for themselves. Lucky they’re so difficult.
Still there’s always the glory of the golden sunsets breaking through the smog filled skies.
‘Cuse me, must dash, I’m off to get a gun.
