Inside The University of Melbourne

When I was six years old, I received the following gift from my aunt. A toy, it consisted of four small magnetic fishing poles with a bed of piranhas bopping up and down whilst spinning in a small plastic “pond”. The aim was to catch as many of these piranhas in this moving “pond”. The person who caught the most was the winner.

It made me think, each piranha was no different from the other. Human beings are similar in many ways.

We live our life that usually goes through loops, with no real determination, letting life’s current form us instead of the other way around. One full rotation is one day in time. Sometimes, days stand out, but weeks never do. This week will by large be like the last. Fifty-two weeks a year for you, and they will all be placid and similar. The minor particulars may vary but the manner in which you live your life and the trail you are on will never significantly alter. Express who you are currently and what you have faith in and it’s no surprise to reveal to you what you will be doing years from now. Perhaps you’ll have a new dog or a new car, or partner, or new toys, but quite frankly nothing the next being you see won’t experience. You’re a piranha. Comfortable.

Think about what it feels like to be a piranha getting snatched out of the pond, away from the safe but foreseeable current with the other piranhas. It seems like it’d be frightening, being extracted from what you’re comfortable with, what you’re at ease with, what you’ve been vested in for so long. Instead now, you escape that with little suggestion of what will occur next. But for some people, they know no other way to live.