“what will we do?” he asked.
“we will save as many tortoises as we can.”
“are you sure?”
“why not?”
“well, there are some tortoises i don’t like.”
“you don’t like them so much that you want them to die?”
“i don’t want them to die. i’m not going to push them into the lake or anything. i’m just not necessarily going to help them out of a lake.”
“you would walk by a tortoise drowning in a lake?”
“no!” the tortoise exclaimed. “i meant that as a metaphor.”
“so literally, you wouldn’t walk past another tortoise if you didn’t like them. but metaphorically, you would.”
“yes, but not just if i didn’t like them. i need to aggressively not like them.”
“so, you would save a stranger tortoise, but not a tortoise that you knew?”
“knew and actively disliked.”
“well, does it occur to you that you are metaphorically walking by literal stranger tortoises that are drowning in metaphorical lakes?”
“unpack that for me.”
“tortoises are dying across the planet. we are an endangered species. and if we don’t do something, if we don’t actively stand up and help them, then it will be just as if we had walked past them while they drowned.”
the tortoise agreed to help with the fund.
