August 21st, 2005

There is a magical place somewhere in this world, or maybe the next. It is a wondrous place for those with eyes open, and sheer hell for those uninterested in the truth. It is a place of education and instruction through literary device.

It is called Metaphor Mountain. In Metaphor Mountain, there are all manner of creatures both common and not-so-common. They live at the mountaintops, the mesa, down the valley, and in the forests that encircle below the crown of ice and snow. They live near or in the lake, in the dark jungle at the base of the mountain, and a few even live inside the elaborate system of natural caves that wend through the rock.

* * *

Today, let me tell you the story of Me-Too-Monkey:

Me-Too-Monkey lived in the jungle near Metaphor Mountain with all the other jungle animals, although she didn't really belong with them. Somewhere, deep down inside, she knew she was different: Not as smart, not quite as able to forage for food as the other animals, not so well spoken or well-thought out at the tribal meetings ... but she continued to live and forage with all the others just the same.

"Me too!" cried Me-Too-Monkey when she saw the other animals sitting and talking.

"Me too!" cried Me-Too-Monkey when she saw the other animals foraging.

"Me too!" cried Me-Too-Monkey whenever she saw anything at all, such as wanting to bring her bongos to the tribal meetings because she saw Ponderous Possum doing it (and she wanted to be Just Like Ponderous Possum). Or she started using big words she didn't quite know the meaning of, because she'd heard the other animals speaking them. When she saw some animals swiping at prey with their claws, she would find a rat and beat it, pretending she had claws too. When she saw other animals using their sharp teeth to cut food, she would try to do the same with her own food, making a terrible mess with her dull grinding teeth.

She'd try to run and keep up with the running animals, and she'd try to hunt with the hunting animals, and she'd try to swim with the swimming animals, all the time crying, "Me too! Me too!" and although she was not able to do any of these things because they were so obviously beyond her abilities, she ignored her own incompetence and continued to try doing them anyway.

Now, all the other animals quietly laughed behind Me-Too-Monkey's back. They could see how awkwardly Me-Too-Monkey tried to do the things that they could, and they could see how Me-Too-Monkey was uncomfortable about it herself. They could hear her louder-than-normal laughing and they could see her larger-than-life movements, but they weren't fooled; they knew that Me-Too-Monkey was just as unhappy about herself as they were with her repeated attempts to be Just Like Them. These animals knew that Me-Too-Monkey's noise was just overcompensation for her self-perceived inadequacy.

But, more than anything else, and most cruelly of all, the other animals just didn't take her seriously. And so she was quietly ignored and giggled at though she was unaware of it. This was the worst treatment possible for Me-Too-Monkey, because she didn't know the other animals were thinking of her as such a fool. And so she looked foolish every day of her life with every little thing she said and every little thing she tried to do.

* * *

In Metaphor Mountain, animals come and go all the time.

So it was not unusual that one day a new animal arrived at Metaphor Mountain. His name was Grumpy Bear. Now, Grumpy Bear had a reputation for saying exactly what he thought. He would tell the other animals his opinions, whether it was favourable or not. This made Grumpy Bear somewhat unpopular among the other animals, sometimes, but they also mostly respected him because they were aware that Grumpy Bear always showed them his full face, and not some attempt at being sly. In fact, Grumpy Bear learned as a cub that he was very bad at being sly; better to leave that to the weasels and foxes, and just be himself.

As is inevitable in a jungle, Grumpy Bear and Me-Too-Monkey crossed paths frequently. At first, as complete strangers, they were friendly:

"Why hello there, Me-Too-Monkey!"

"Oh, um, hello there, Grumpy Bear! How are you today?"

"Fine, Me-Too-Monkey, how are you?"

[Cautiously] "Oh, ah, I am fine."

But, after a time, Grumpy Bear and Me-Too-Monkey started to bump into each other on those crossed paths. More and more, they had collisions with each other, and each time it was because Me-Too-Monkey was trying to behave like an animal that she was not. A typical situation went like this:

Bang! [Silence from Me-Too-Monkey]

"Say," said Grumpy Bear, "if you were not trying to run through the jungle like Bobby Boar or Peter Puma, and instead were swinging through the trees like the monkey that you are, we wouldn't have collided like that!"

[More silence from Me-Too-Monkey]

This repeated itself several more times, and Grumpy Bear was starting to question whether or not it was his fault (after all, Grumpy Bear was well aware that he moved in big circles, and left large footprints in his wake). But soon he heard conversations and laughter about Me-Too-Monkey from the other animals and learned that he was not alone in his lack of respect for and irritation at Me-Too-Monkey. In fact, the only difference was that he was not afraid to speak his mind. The others were just somewhat more political animals and so knew to maintain quiet about their true feelings about Me-Too-Monkey (or at least where she could hear them).

And so, soon, because Grumpy Bear was so vocal and the other animals kept silence towards Me-Too-Monkey, it became apparent that Me-Too-Monkey thought Grumpy Bear alone was her nemesis ... the single source of stress in her otherwise cheerful life. It never occurred to her that his candidness was the only thing visible to her somewhat limited little intelligence and imagination, and so she felt as though Grumpy Bear was the only one with something nasty to say about her.

This left Me-Too-Monkey with an unpleasant choice: Either she could face the fact that she was not a true jungle-dwelling animal, more of a wannabe than a serious creature of the realm ... or she could declare war on Grumpy Bear. Well, of course she did the latter. Me-Too-Monkey was a monkey, after all, and not another bear.

You see, Me-Too-Monkey's motivation was the fear that if Grumpy Bear were not somehow "put into his place", he might actually be right about Me-Too-Monkey's rather pathetic attempts at trying to be everything she was not—and that would spell disaster for Me-Too-Monkey's delicate network of self-denial feelings. So that panic fed a fervour to attack Grumpy Bear on all fronts, just as soon as something could come along that was attack-worthy.

And the time soon came:

* * *

The Lion, the King of the Jungle, summoned Grumpy Bear to his demesne one day and said these words: "Mr. Bear, I need you to perform a task for me. I want you to create a pile of rocks over there to show the rest of the inhabitants of Metaphor Mountain that our jungle is the best place to live."

"I will do this task to the best of my abilities, my liege."

And so Grumpy Bear set out to accomplish the task that he had been told to perform.

As soon as Me-Too-Monkey heard about this task, though, she became upset and panicky. What actual thoughts went through her mind are difficult to report, as she hasn't much of a mind to squeeze thoughts into, and what thoughts that are already there are always heavily tinged by self-conscious double-checking and appearance-based fears. But maybe they ran something like this: "No! Why is he doing this task??? Why aren't I??? I am the biggest proponent of the quality of life in this jungle, I should be doing this! Grumpy Bear must somehow be stopped, or somehow fail at his task!"

And Me-Too-Monkey began a campaign to stop Grumpy Bear from doing the task he was asked to do by The Lion. At first it was a war of words: "You should be spending more time on the shape of the rocks, than planning the size of the pile ... You haven't considered who will be seeing this pile of rocks; that will determine what colour to make them ... The pile of rocks should be here, or maybe eight smaller piles all over these places ..."

Next, Me-Too-Monkey, started telling all the other animals about her ideas for piles of rocks: "My piles of rocks will look this way and be this colour." And meticulously compiled a big list of all the piles of rocks that would be in the jungle, carefully making sure that the lion's plan for a pile of rocks was not mentioned anywhere. "It was just a minor oversight," said Me-Too-Monkey with a smirk.

Grumpy Bear was somewhat surprised at the vehemence and swiftness of Me-Too-Monkey's attack, but reasoned to himself that Me-Too-Monkey must have her reasons.

But then Grumpy Bear was summoned back to the Lion, the King of the Jungle. The King asked Grumpy Bear why there was such a mess of rocks everywhere, and Grumpy Bear replied, "I don't know why, my liege, but Me-Too-Monkey made all those little piles of rocks herself, just as soon as she heard that I was supposed to make my pile."

"Ah," The King chuckled, "Me-Too-Monkey has been making a mess of things again, eh? Well, don't let her get you down, Mr. Bear; at least she's proved to you that she thinks you are important enough to be imitated with all her little piles of rocks and all. She'll eventually figure out that the jungle is not the place for her, and that maybe she should go work in the Metaphor Mountain Government Office; they're all like her there so she'd feel right at home ..."

And Grumpy Bear left the king and returned to making his big pile of rocks.

Me-Too-Monkey continued to emulate him with all her little piles of rocks.

And the whole forest, including Grumpy Bear and the King, had another good long laugh at Me-Too-Monkey.

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