Following the Turtle

About 3 summers ago I acted on impulse and bought a yellow belly slider turtle.  He was just a baby and only twenty dollars; I thought, why the hell not? The humor and peculiar joy that this little turtle brought to me was not shared by the parental units whose house he would be living in.  After a few weeks of questioning my IQ level my parents came to enjoy the presence of the little reptile and began to laugh at the fact that he resided in our house.  After year of residency in the Carter household it became apparent that LT (his newly acquired name) was living a life of quiet desperation.  Our little turtle seemed bored and would float around all day staring at us.  After much deliberation it was decided that he needed some sort of activity to do throughout the day.  We soon discovered that turtles enjoy hunting down minnows and gobbling them up, so we ventured out to pet-smart and bought him 10.  As soon as those helpless fish were dropped into the tank LT went to work; our turtle made quick work of the first seven fish and ate them within the first hour of their arrival.  But a day past by, then a week, a month, then a year and LT didn't touch the other fish.  The three spared minnows soon grew eating the scraps the turtle left behind.  Our family couldn't figure out why he didn't eat those other fish; theories of him being too slow and them becoming friends with the turtle were passed around but all of these were non-sense.  The turtle caught all the other fish easily, so it wouldn't be a problem for him to catch the other three.  As for LT making friends with the fish, that is the Disney movie mentality leaking into our logic.  But with a flash of revelation I figured out exactly why LT didn't eat the fish.  By leaving the three fish alone LT was maintaining an equilibrium with his environment.  In the wild if the turtle had eaten all the fish, his food source would disappear and the animal would die.  So simply by instinct LT had not eaten the other fish to ensure that his environment would continue to exist.  

I think that we can learn something from this little twenty dollar turtle.  Without learning that one must stay in balance with its environment to continue to thrive, LT had practiced it by not eating all the fish.  This is a quality or state of mind that especially western society lacks.  Our tendency to move like locusts through resources and land is appalling.  The rapid consumerism and encouraged mentality of getting as much as you can for the least amount of work is evident in my families response to the turtle.  We were shocked that he didn't consume the fish as rapidly as possible like we would do with a big bacon cheeseburger.  This lifestyle choice of consumerism has led to nothing but inequality and rapidly dissipating resources.  It seems evident to me that the turtle is living a much more responsible life than us human beings.  By only taking what he needs and ensuring the equilibrium of the environment the turtle is protecting not only his life but his descendants lives from turbulence.  So maybe we should take some notes on how this little turtle lives;  this environmental restraint might end up saving humanity...