The Big Hawks On the Concrete Poles

Consequences: A logical result or inference.

I have been pondering the ins and outs of life, the whys and wherefores.  This is typically not a productive activity for me but it doesn't seem to stop me from doing it.  I was thinking about how ironic it is that when I get my hands on some situation or problem and try to manipulate it to my liking, things often go awry. 

I was reminded of the story of The Farmers and The Hawks.  This isn't really a story in the sense that it's written down or passed along in some kind of oral tradition to teach young people in a clever and ironical sense how to not make a mess of things but let's pretend it is so we don't get bogged down in some dead end loop of circular semantic logic.  And I should admit that I'm not certain I have any of my facts straight as far as the animals involved or anything like that but I'm going to forge ahead to make a point that is important to me, at this moment, but which I'll forget about in the next hour.

I was in Costa Rica.  I was in a car being driven into the jungle.  On the way we passed miles upon miles of fields full of crops.  In each field were many tall concrete poles with big bird houses perched on top.  There were big hawks sitting on top of some of the poles.

"OK, what's the deal with the poles?" I asked the driver.

He explained that each field used to have the occasional palm tree.  The palm trees were home to the big hawks.  Some MBA business guy hundreds of miles away probably decided that if all of the palm trees were cut down, then there would be more arable land to plant money making crops.  So in came the chain saws and down came the trees.  The big hawks lit out for the Territory Ahead because they didn't have any place to live.  The MBAs were happy because they increased the amount of land that could be used for making money.

Alas, the big hawks were making their living eating the rats that enjoyed eating the crops.  With the big hawks gone, the rats ran wild and devastated the fields.  So the MBAs had to hire people to come in and build synthetic palm trees.  The whole system was working fine until some one messed around with it.

That's me.  I'm the MBA.  I'm always trying to game the system.