Title This Story

[Little_Sticks]

Once there was a duck named Hue, like all other ducks. Hue had likes and dislikes and perceptions of his own. One day he met some other ducks of his own, playing out their world. These ducks lived on different terms, one liked war, believed in asserting one’s way through life – to preempt the other; the other duck read books, thinking it best to gain as much knowledge about the world – to preempt the other. Hue told them about how happy he was to live in resonance with the world as a duck – to rapport with the other.

These other ducks were annoyed. “How can you be a duck?”, they thought.

“Your view of the world is wrong, is idealistic; you must outdo the other before they outdo you. This is history, this is fact.”, the war duck explained.

“Your view of the world is wrong, is idealistic; you must outwit the other before they outwit you. This is history, this is fact.”, the book duck explained.

They both agreed, you must outdo the other.

Hue felt uncomfortable. Hue was confused. He didn’t feel the same way, but perhaps he was wrong. After all, these ducks had fact, these ducks knew?

At work, Hue was confused again. The ducks around him seemed stressed, seemed strained, preferring to argue as the other two ducks he had met. This made Hue uncomfortable and he didn’t know why; if he told someone about it, that something was wrong, something not just him, he was given the reason why things must be as they are, why things can only change as they are, all preceded by facts, and here they are.


This bothered Hue, it made him sick. The sickness impounded until he did not see much to care about anything anymore.


The other ducks were annoyed. “How can you be a duck?”, they thought.

“Your functioning is wrong. There are some things you aren’t doing right; you worry about yourself first, others second. You must care about yourself, not others, you learn to ignore. Here is a list and you will be right; these things work. This is history, this is fact. Now be good and do as you’re told.”, they chiefly laid out.
Hue was very confused, but maybe they were right, he wondered. “How could they be wrong, if it worked for them?”, he thought.

Hue still didn’t understand, but he learned to ignore; it didn’t work, just made him numb, made him well-reasoned, and made him care just enough to get by.


But that was enough for the world.


He used fact to show how others are wrong. This is fact, that is not fact, you must be wrong, he decided to explore.

He felt it was a giant joke, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Many of his feelings and expressions became fake, his logic secure.

He knew it was a giant joke, but he didn’t know what else to do.


Hue slowly started to notice that everyone had their own giant joke, some not as much as others, but still all the same. He now knew he was not the only one; that was all he felt he had in common now with the other ducks.


And all of duck-kind’s problems that seemed to arose, dealt with reason. There must be one answer, let reason with the best facts battle it out, only one way to solve, everything had become. What worked/works was fact, should not be changed, is devoid of error. Little did they seem to understand – those facts created their own problems, the giant jokes – the degradation of being a duck through the inauguration of reason.


The giant joke made the ducks seem haughty. Each one separate, the facts being the only difference, their sense of omnipotence.


This made Hue naive and bold. One day Hue wandered out from the ducks and met a wolf, surprised to find a duck boldly approaching him. The wolf looked at Hue with eager suspicion, not sure what was there. The duck seemed unflustered, how strange - the wolf’s mind cautioned him.

“What do you think you’re doing, duck?”, the wolf felt the need to investigate before taking the plunge.

Hue stopped and looked at the wolf for a while, going over the facts of what brought him there. Both were terribly confused. Hue then had to ask “What exactly is a duck? See the evidence shows that I might actually be a wolf and not a duck as you might clearly see.”

 

[Engineer]

Behold! War duck! (Seriously, I'm going to start using that phrase from now on.)

Titles:
If I Was to Be Sarcastic: "Thinly-Veiled Metaphor for the Author's Life"
If I Was to Be Cynical: "Slightly-Incoherent Pretentious Philosophy Duck Meets a Wolf"
If I Was to Be Honest: "Am I a Duck: Hue's Tail" (get it? get it?! )

An interesting story, what were you writing it for?

 

[Little_Sticks]

Behold! War duck! (Seriously, I'm going to start using that phrase from now on.)

Ohh, it's cute.

If I Was to Be Sarcastic: "Thinly-Veiled Metaphor for the Author's Life"

Well, I guess you could say this about any story someone writes, since it's ultimately a manner of expression.

An interesting story, what were you writing it for?

Sometimes I have to get stuff out of my head and this seemed like a good place to do that. By removing the title I allow everyone else to interpret it any way that they want. I guess I wanted to see if people reached similar conclusions to myself, and if not, where they might differ; I suppose that's the best way that I learn, because then I'm given a more detailed perspective instead of a binary right or wrong, which doesn't tell me how I'm right or wrong.

Or maybe it wasn't well-written though. Or maybe no one really cares because it's not as fun as being given a scenario or problem and asked to solve or make a detailed argument?

Ahh, shoot. Well that's okay, I tried at least.