I only learnt about the story of the scorpion and the frog, a few days ago. After someone did something really hurtful to me and the only explanation they had was, well, ‘scorpion and frog.’
The scorpion and the frog fable is about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion but midway across the river, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.
The morale of this being that the behavior of some creatures is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences. ‘The scorpion and the frog’ is just another excuse people give to explain human behavior. And I guess it does ring true. You see it in the actions of a ‘happily’ married man who cheats on his wife. Of a loving ‘best friend’ who sleeps with your boyfriend. Of relatives who wish you ill luck yet you’re the one paying their rent and buying their children clothes. In men of influence who have been corrupted by power and treat those beneath them like dirt, only to fall eventually.
Human nature is a mystery unto itself. To even try and decipher it would be like trying to teach poetry to fish.
So are we condemned at live out our lives like the scorpion? Always looking out for the negative part even when people reach out to help us? Or must we be the gullible and naïve frog, to take on something we know will eventually hurt us, but believe in its redemption?
History is wrought of stories where people have blindly trusted others in the hope that they would reform and become better. Who can forget the classic trying to turn a bad boy into a good man? It does not get done. And Iam not being fatalistic by saying this, Iam just being true. I like positivism. It’s a generally commendable attribute but occasionally awkward.
But I won’t shoot down the dreamers. No, I will not. That would be in horrible taste. For it is the dreamers, that make this life not as prosaic as it would undoubtedly be.
But we must understand, however bitter the pill may be, that human nature is incomprehensible. And whoever tells you that they have figured it out, is lying and should be shot. Then thrown off a cliff and hit every branch on the way down. For they will lie about small things too.
So if you do meet the cunning friend, the conman who plays at your heartstrings like a fiddle and takes you for all you’ve got, weep for a moment then let it go. For such is human nature. It’s a beautiful as it is tragic.
Someone once said no one chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. Good intentions, the road to hell is paved with them too.
It is the scorpion that pulls humanity down. Scorpions may know the consequences and not care, like the universal suicide bomber, or may through vanity and denial refuse to see the consequences.
All rivers begin in the human heart, the human heart is infirm. The saddest thing I ever heard, ‘humanity is on a one way trip to self destruction,’ will be true for so long as we have scorpions.
And yet we have all been scorpions at one time or the other. It is our dark passenger. The darkness within that we hope will never come out to play but ultimately does. For only after we admit who we are can we become better. We must admit that we are human, highly defective yet ever more redeemably beautiful.
In Herself
Racheal Kasula
