There’s so much talk. Do you remember that feeling that a conversation could give you when you were fifteen? Utter frustration or elation. Chasing logical ghosts that promise trips to other places, bright worlds with purpose. Ghosts who disappear when asked to stand and deliver because you can’t rob the dead of anything. Do you remember that feeling of total hope and hopelessness? The feeling of truth, though. Do you remember that? Of the pain of a lie. How little we think of lies now that we’re older. You’d think that kind of pain would leave remainders, it’s impossible to divide emotions evenly.

But the talk. That’s what I wanted to get at.

Conversations lately. Is it coffee, cyberpunk, weather, hockey, local music, literature, office gossip, talking about one lover with another? What sort of betrayals are we engaging in daily? Little ones perhaps. Here’s a proverb I heard once: the smallest hole will empty the largest vessel in time. What was the last thing you said that you were proud of saying?

Okay, new angle on the topic.

I heard a story lately that I liked: This frog and this scorpion are on the bank of a river and the scorpion wants to get across. He says to frog, “Frog,” he says, “I would like to cross the river. Will you take me?”

Frog says, “No. That’s ridiculous, Scorpion. You’ll sting me.”

Scorpion says, “No I won’t. Word of honor.”

Frog says, “Really?”

“Really,” replies the scorpion.

Frog proceeds to let the scorpion on his back and swim to the other bank. Halfway out the scorpion stings the frog. The frog’s dying words are: “Why did you do it? We’ll both die now.”

The scorpion replies, “It’s in my nature.”

While I liked the tale, I had a seven inch pet scorpion named Cairo Noirsae Bubbles and I held him in bare hands every day. I let him ride in my shirt pocket. He never stung me or even tried to. He ate his crickets alive—which was somewhat terrifying—because he didn’t sting them either. Cairo was always much more concerned with hiding than with doing harm; he’d try to wriggle between my fingers when I held him. But that’s my point about nature. It’s not in a scorpion’s nature to destroy itself, just the opposite in fact.

Fables aren’t Marlin Perkins. Fables are about us. Frogs don’t talk with scorpions much in real life. And there’s only one animal on the planet that regularly engages in self immolation. And the only way self destruction can work is if it is passed off as something else, or if it appears the only way there is; if it seems like the natural thing to do. So there are fables and excuses, so we can be comfortable talking about this seemingly unique nature of ours. That’s where we left off: talk.

Back to the column (shoulder on the wheel, fingers in the grindstone, nose up the… you get the idea).

Point being, I suppose: Talk but don’t let it be filler, don’t use it to plug up the empty spaces in life; let it mean something, do something. Call your girlfriend or her racism—call your boyfriend on his homophobia. Learn to ask why again. Learn, like we used to want to so badly when we were children. Talk about and do what you really enjoy not what you hear you ought to be enjoying. If something feels wrong don’t talk yourself into thinking it ought to feel right. Don’t let anyone. The nature of this human animal is no more suicidal than that of a bug. If it truly was, you wouldn’t be reading this, I wouldn’t be writing it.

I want to ask you a favor in closing. Look around yourself. What do you see?

Civilization?

I’ve heard tell it’s bad style to end an essay with a question. What of it?