Finger Monkeys

The difference between a start and a beginning is often difficult to measure, but not in the case of this here blog. A couple of months between "Hello" and "where were we?" allowed time to work out some perspectives and bring a new human being into the world. Howdy. Welcome back.

The monkey thing goes deeper than the global relationship between one simian and another. It's personal.

I blurt things. Sometimes appropriate, sometimes sensible, and sometimes neither. One of the expressive outbursts that escaped frequently back in the day was "monkey nuts", which was sometimes shortened to "monkeys". It permanently stopped at "monkeys" after a friend returned from a trip to Victoria, B.C. with a tale about visiting the zoo. seeing tiny monkeys of incomparable cuteness, and having a couple of travel-mates launch into a drunken discussion about including them in omelettes. The friend still seemed horrified by the idea, but the kind of residual horror that is easily plumbed for laughs. For some reason best explained as "working hundred-hour weeks under constant pressure for a month", just hearing the word "monkeys" became a hilarity trigger.

I also have a bit of a problem with troublesome thoughts that need to be stopped in their tracks. Many folks who practice that particular coping mechanism say "Stop!" or "No!", but something about the negativity of those go-tos didn't help as much. One day, a few months after the "monkey" thing had transitioned into the realm of the sublime, I was driving to work when a flood of badness started pouring into my head and I couldn't say either of the traditional words. Instead, I said "I'm just a monkey." The thoughts it had come in answer to were based on mistakes I'd made, mis-steps that made me feel freakish and unnatural compared to the rest of humanity. But in saying "I'm just a monkey", I realised it was true. Simple things that anyone could do if they didn't know any better or were being governed by reaction over learning. Monkey mistakes. And I felt better after saying it.

Later that week, another set of uncomfortable thoughts hit me, things that had been done to me rather than things I'd done, and the word that came out was "monkeys!", and, again, I felt better. The people who had done those things were monkeys, too. Well, simians, but now my brain had decided accuracy wasn't as important as providing a comforting word. A lifelong attempt to codify my personal philosophy more neatly had just found a cornerstone: we're all monkeys, ultimately. We do monkey things. We think monkey thoughts. We make monkey mistakes. It's going to happen. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Monkeys.

Introspective and shallow content alike fall under the "we're all monkeys" banner. Individual and universal. And a pretty good excuse for wildly veering subject matter, I think. I hope.

Because it will definitely veer wildly, perhaps even careening somewhat like a monkey flinging itself from tree to tree. Plenty of vines to share with those who want to join me as I propel myself through the canopy, if you're interested.