Sunday, July 13, 2014

Pop! Goes The Weasel

     The old nursery rhyme goes like this:

Round and round the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun:
Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle;
That's the way the money goes:
Pop! goes the weasel.

      Is it just me, or is there a meaning hidden in this little rhyme?

     The monkey was thinking and operating in the circle of the world, which is to think locally.  The weasel could operate in that world too, just as well as the monkey.  But the weasel could think and operate non-locally, too.

     Where did the weasel go?  Into some tunnel, into some other dimension -- who knows?  He went Pop!

     What happened to the monkey?  Who knows?

     Spools and threads and needles are useful things -- strong, continuous, readily available, and cheap; and so is the money that buys them.

     Both the monkey and the weasel are conscious, animate beings;  but the weasel displays a mode of consciousness and an agility that the monkey does not.

     The smart money is on the weasel.


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     Spoiler alert:  that is NOT what Wikipedia thinks it means.

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