It was Grebbelthorp’s first day on earth, and I was showing them around.
It was kind of a funny coincidence that they had ended up here on earth, given how far they had traveled and how different they were from us humans, but where they came from and how we met is a story for another time.
So far I had shown them around Manhattan. Grebbelthorp was far from human… far from humanoid altogether for that matter, but no one seemed to notice or care. I explained the subway system, which they understood quickly.
“Fast metal tube,” said Grebbelthorp.
We went to Times Square and I told them that New Yorkers usually avoid Times Square. They signalled that they understood. I bought them a chicken over rice from a street cart and held out the styrofoam container.
“Nutrients. Suitable for human. Unsuitable for Grebbelthorp.”
A slick finance looking guy walked by, talking loud into his airpods, “Just look at the ROI on that trade! It’s like the tortoise and the hare except the hare didn’t go to sleep, he took some adderall and how he’s fucking the tortoise in the ass! Do you wanna be the tortoise? Don’t sleep on this! Look, gotta jump, let’s do lunch. Ping Cassie and she’ll set it up. Yeah. Buh bye. Siri, play Started From the Bottom by Drake. STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM. DRAKE. PLAY.”
I could tell that Grebbelthorp wanted an explanation, but where to start?
I began, “So on earth there is a global financial system…”
“Yes. Disease of unlimited growth. Exploitation. Unsustainable extraction of resources. No care for needs of beings and health of overall society. Understand.”
Grebbelthorp was sounding like an anti-capitalist. Good to know. Their English was improving as well.
“But what is tortoise? What is hare?”
I motioned to a stone bench outside an office building skyscraper. It was accentuated by some sad looking bushes and pigeons. I sat and Grebbelthorp… contorted… onto the bench next to me. I took a couple bites of the chicken and rice with extra white sauce and extra red sauce as Grebbelthorp settled in.
“Well, a tortoise is an animal with a hard shell on its body, and a hare is a small furry animal. Here, look,” I pulled out my phone and googled tortoise and then hare and showed Grebbelthorp the images.
“Yes. But what is meaning of hare and adderall and fucking tortoise and ass?”
I sighed and took a moment to think. “Well, there are layers to this one. It’s a reference to a fable called The Tortoise and the Hare. In the story the hare and the tortoise race each other, but the hare falls asleep and the tortoise wins. Oh, and tortoises are slow so normally they wouldn’t be able to win against a hare.”
“Please tell complete story.”
“Okay, let me see if I remember it,” I closed my eyes and took a moment to jog my memory. “So, once upon a time there was a tortoise and a hare. Tortoise always walked and talked very slowly, and hare would sprint back and forth, running circles around tortoise and making all the other animals laugh.”
“This is historical record?” asked Grebbelthorp.
“No, it’s a fable, a story for children to teach them a life lesson.”
“Continue.”
“One day, tortoise was tired of all the other animals laughing, so they asked hare to stop running in circles around them.
‘Leave me alone, hare, or else!’ said tortoise.
‘Or else?’ hare laughed. ‘Or else what? You couldn’t catch me even at my slowest!’
‘I’ll show you. I challenge you to a race!’
Hare and all the other animals laughed. ‘A race? That’s a good one, I’ll be finished before you even cross the starting line. But if you want to embarrass yourself, be my guest!’
And so the other animals drew a starting line right there where they stood, and a finish line all the way down at the end of the winding path, and owl stepped forward as the referee.”
“Story of inevitable defeat. Loss of hope,” interjected Grebbelthorp.
“Well that’s what you would expect, isn’t it? But listen to the rest of the story. So, tortoise and hare both got ready at the starting line, and owl hooted, ‘On your mark, get set, go!’
The other animals cheered, and before tortoise had even crossed the starting line, hare had already disappeared around the first curve.”
“Tortoise has hidden projectile weapon,” said Grebbelthorp.
I was trying my best to be patient. “Let me finish the story first, and then you’ll see, okay?”
Grebbelthorp gave a motion of understanding and leaned in closer.
“Okay, so hare is way down the path and tortoise has barely moved forward. About halfway through the race, hare stops by a nice grassy field and looks back. Hare can’t see tortoise at all, and he laughs to himself, ‘What was that tortoise thinking? I could lay down and take a rest in the grass and still finish the race before that slowpoke. As a matter of fact, that’s not such a bad idea,’ and hare found a nice comfortable spot in the grass to rest. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.
Meanwhile, tortoise kept taking one slow step after another, making slow and steady progress. While hare was napping, tortoise made his way along the path, passed quietly by hare nestled in the grass, and after quite a while longer he approached the finish line.
Hare awoke to a loud cheer in the distance. It took him a moment to realize that the other animals were cheering as tortoise approached the finish line. Hare leapt up and sprinted as fast as he could, but he was too late. Tortoise crossed the finish line right as hare was on the home stretch.
Hare felt embarrassed as all the animals cheered for tortoise. Tortoise turned to hare and said, ‘See hare? Slow and steady wins the race!”
There was a long pause as I finished the story and waited for Grebbelthorp’s reaction.
“That is end? No retaliation from hare?”
“Well, it’s a children’s fable, so it’s purpose is just to teach a lesson.”
“And lesson is to hope that opponent fails? What if hare had not slept?”
Grebbelthorp had a point. Now that I thought about it, in 99 out of 100, maybe even 999 out of 1,000 races the hare would have simply run straight to the end and won easily. They could have even taunted tortoise for the entire race, staying just one step ahead of them the whole time, and still won. I know that in high level sports the competitors are often so closely matched that the only way to win is to exploit your opponent’s mistakes, but this isn’t exactly a US Open Tennis situation. Why would tortoise so confidently challenge hare to a race that they were extremely likely to lose?
The moral of the story is supposed to be that slow consistent effort beats bursts of hard work without follow through, and yes, I have seen that to be true in many cases. Most of the people who I have seen achieve high level lasting success over the course of my life have taken years of consistent effort to get there, while the flash in the pan successes have quickly faded. But the key factor to those successes is that the person loved what they were doing enough to keep going through the tough times and the plateaus. They were driven by the passion for their craft, combined with some amount of natural aptitude, plus long term steady effort over the years. It also doesn’t make sense to villainize the flash in the pan people either, because that could have been a pivotal moment of discovery for them that they were running in the wrong race altogether, or maybe they had been working for a long time behind the scenes and this was in fact just a flashy chapter of a slow and steady race of their own. And in the end we are all only racing against ourselves, right?
I also find it hard to believe from a psychological standpoint that hare, doing something he loved, running, would allow himself to fall asleep in the middle of the race. And tortoise is participating in the race with a chip on their shoulder. I have observed many people who are motivated by that kind of “I’ll show them” mentality burn out along the way, or else reach their goal and then find only emptiness when they arrive because the motivation was all external, not internal. How many people do you know running in the career rat race just because that’s what they feel they are supposed to do? There are a lot of them, and they are pretty miserable. Why does life have to be a race at all?
And if it is taken as a societal commentary, and the hare represents wealth and resources and power, a more accurate version of the story would be 100 runner hares employed by an oligarch hare, and all they do every day is train in racing and receive an optimal diet for muscle recovery and growth. The other animals all have to pay oligarch hare to enter the race grounds and watch the race, and there is a marketing hype cycle leading up to the race, creating a narrative of equal opportunity and that anyone could win the race. Tortoise would come in last, injuring themselves in the process, and then they would have to work for oligarch hare for years to pay off their debts incurred from taking time off work to participate in the race.
I was lost deep in thought, and Grebbelthorp seemed to be reading my mind, possibly literally, because they said, “Grebbethorp will tell you story of Orb and Cube. Story from homeworld.”
I snapped out of my rumination, and nodded for them to continue.
“There was orb and cube. Orb was given task to stand still on sloped surface. Cube was given task to move across sloped surface.
Orb tried not to move, strained with all their strength, but no matter how hard they tried, they would fail and roll along the surface. Cube tried to move across sloped surface, but no matter how hard they tried, they failed to move due to friction of flat side on surface.
One day, orb rolled by and saw cube standing still and said, ‘If only I was like cube, and could stand still so perfectly.’
Cube saw orb and said, ‘I wish I could move so smoothly and freely like orb.’
Orb kept rolling, and soon they could no longer see cube, but they remembered what they saw. For many years orb would remember and say, ‘I am so bad at my task, why oh why can’t I be like cube?’ they kept rolling and rolling across the sloped surface in misery.
One day, orb rolled slower and slower. They had reached flat ground. Soon they came to a stop. Finally they could succeed at their task of standing still.
But just then, a messenger arrived, coming down from the sky. ‘Hello orb,’ said the messenger. ‘I am afraid there was a mistake. You were assigned the task of standing still, but you were actually meant to receive the task of moving. Proceed now with moving.’
But orb could not move. They were on flat ground. No momentum. Orb thought back on all that time spent moving, feeling miserable, when they could have been full of joy and appreciation for their gifts. And so orb sat in despair until the end of time.”
Grebbelthorp stopped talking and seemed to be done with their story.
“And the lesson is to be true to yourself and play to your strengths?” I asked.
“No, lesson is that Supreme Being Gllyphin, the one who assigns tasks and rules over all, is a cruel master.”
“Okay, so kind of like a cruel fate message. It’s dark but not unlike a lot of Earth religions. Suffering and guilt and hoping for a better afterlife or reward, that kind of thing,” I was trying to understand, but the story made me feel uneasy. “And you tell this story to children?”
“Not religious belief, literal.”
I chuckled, but I felt a chill run down my spine. The shredded iceberg lettuce with the chicken and rice tasted dry.
Suddenly we were in shadow. I looked up and saw something massive blocking out the sun. Grebbelthorp rose up and now they were much taller. Spikier. “You have only begun to understand Supreme Being Gllyphin and their ways. You will learn. You will suffer as orb suffered.”
Spoiler alert – I was able to outsmart Supreme Being Gllyphin’s attempted invasion of Earth, but once again, that is a story for another time. For now, think twice the next time someone wants you to show them around Times Square.