I was in a
zoo once, sneaking
wine from a picnic basket and watching my favorite animals in the world,
ring-tailed lemurs.
Near the lemur's cage was a
sapling which had been stripped bare by the hungry creatures. At the top of the sapling was a single leaf, which all of the lemurs
coveted,
They did something incredible, which was to
cooperate in an attempt to gain access to the last leaf. One lemur stood at the bottom of the cage, and pulled the sapling a little closer. Another climbed on the
shoulders of the first, and pulled it even closer. And so on, until there was a chain of five lemurs, bringing the last uneaten leaf agonisingly close, but not close enough.
A sixth lemur would have been able to climb on top of the others and claim the leaf. The problem was that all of them wanted to be the sixth lemur. At this
point, all of the lemurs made a leap at the leaf, including the five lemurs at the bottom of the
pyramid. By letting go, the sapling snapped back, putting it out of the reach of all of them.
I watched them attempt this for an a full hour, and couldn't help thinking that it was a metaphor for
something.