HIGHER LAWS

Monkeys are puzzled by the human concept of ownership - as manifested in me, in this instance. Always cracks me up, that fuzzy look they get in their eyes as they have a shot at trying to figure out what I’m going on about while all they’re doing is enjoying the onion they were the first to discover, first to pluck from the ground, and that they are now holding in their paw and biting into, ergo they own it, so what’s the problem, dancing man?

Monkey legalities are clear cut, straightforward - no legal niceties in the wild - no liens, lawsuits, adverse possession, bad faith, no secret or hidden possession, no mortgages or deeds and so forth, all unneeded, since trust is not a cornerstone of natural justice, yet the simians are learning creatures, are they not, and therefore naturally involved in evolving beyond mindless brigandage, just as we ourselves once were (doubts of our success notwithstanding), so of course they will have a go now and then at expanding their minds, such as when they have a monkily owned onion in hand, are chewing on it and I pop up out of an opening in that big box over there, jumping up and down in my usual manner, throwing rocks, shouting and gesticulating wildly for some reason, trying to get something across that the monkeys can’t quite grasp, yet-- "That footwalker is so much in earnest, and so redfaced, there must be something to it..." is a thought that seems to zip through their mindspace as they gaze sidelong at me and then finally lope off with their onions, no sense hanging around a rock-throwing nonmonkey...

One might even think they are trying to evolve, given the slight evidence, such as of a conscience, until a gardening season later they steal another of my onions and try once more, fleetingly, to get their minds around this bizarre concept that the hatwearers apparently embrace, that onions far away from them are in their possession, even when in a monkey's grip! Could anything be stranger? Or more different from the keystone of monkey law, to wit: I’ve got the onion in my paw and I’m eating it; could anything be more owned? A philosophy shared, to a much greater extent, by many of our fellow moneyspenders, DC and Wall Street being handy examples.

So, in evolutionary reaction, I have stopped growing onions; but for who knows how long, since this could cause a setback in simian legal evolution. Just imagine the pretty balance there could be to the world one day, if we could get the monkeys and the bankers into the same high court...