A Parable About Fish

Once there was a small pond, enclosed by a meadow in the mist of a steamy tropical jungle. Though a massive river ran nearby, the pond itself was tiny, save for rare occasions when the river flooded well above its banks and swamped the pond, but most of the water came from frequent rainfall.

The pond was a thriving little place. There were hundreds of species of insects, twenty or so kinds of fish, a few amphibians, uncounted and uncountable microorganisms, aquatic plants, crustaceans, and the like.

As a whole, it was a very stable little system, and for its scale, a thriving one. The microorganisms were eaten by the smaller fish and insects, while the smaller fish and insects were eaten by the bigger fish and invertebrates. But the biggest fish in the pond (tilapia agriculturalus) ate the plants and the algae, keeping the water free of blooms, and providing, by their fry, waste, and eventual decay the foundation for life in the pond. Smaller fish helped in this process, eating the insects that might harm the plants the big fish needed to survive, stirring up the sediment so the plant seeds could grow and the silt wouldn’t solidify, and eating some of the organisms that would otherwise prey on the big fish’s young.

One day there was a big flood, and a new species of fish (piranhas ravenous financialus) came into the pond. This species did not arrive alone; it brought with its own parasites, the Trading Leech, and the Speculative Worm.

The new fish were single minded and hungry, and quickly set about devouring everything in sight, so that they could grow bigger. Meanwhile their parasites attacked the smaller creatures and large alike, weakening them, hijacking their hosts bodies to feed themselves. Soon the new fish had consumed all the small, medium, and large fish in the pond, along with everything else worth eating. The native fish, already weakened by parasites proved easy prey, and the piranhas grew ever larger, sleeker, and stronger.

Soon though, they discovered there were no more fish to eat, except for other piranha. So the larger piranha started devouring the smaller ones, and the ones made weak by parasites, growing sleeker and stronger, until there pond was full of huge, sleek predators, circling each other, waiting for a chance to devour each other in order to grow ever larger.

Meanwhile, the plants that had been kept in check by the tilapia began to fill up the edges of the pond, while blooms of algae began to form over the surface, blocking out light, trapping heat in the water and leeching poisons into the pond. Bacteria that were kept in check by the insects and little fish, now swallowed by the piranhas, began to infect the few fish left, and any fish that weakened was immediately devoured by its brethren, who continued to grow, spawn, and devour their own young.

Finally the pond began to silt up, the water to stagnate, the plants to fill all the available space, as the last few piranhas circled in an ever smaller pond, proud of how large they’d grown and fiercely they devoured each other.

In the end, one fat bloated fish gasped for life in the stagnant, slimy puddle that remained of the once prosperous pond. Its only hope was that someone would come and bail it out, or pump more liquid assets into the pond.



Hey, I never claimed it was a good parable.