peacock

I am in India and I have just been watching a peacock. But before I tell you about this peacock, I want to tell you about a cartoon I saw recently. It showed a peacock strutting its stuff, displaying its tail feathers to two peahens, but one of the peahens was saying, “Cut the crap, show us your willy!”

It made me laugh. For so much of our vanity is like the tail feathers of that peacock: just for show to impress people, to get sex in the end, is what it usually boils down to, either directly or indirectly.

And that cartoon also reminded me, that clothing was invented by men with small penises. That's why we have to hide our bodies these days. If all men had been born with the same size penis, nobody would have to wear clothes. But some have smaller and some have bigger, and the ones with smaller penises weren't getting enough sex, so they invented clothes, better to leave it to the women's imagination, until it's too late. Now we are all stuck with it, having to hide our bodies, as if there is something wrong with them. Anyway, enough of the digression.

The peacock I was watching a little earlier had jumped on to the outside sill of a window. And there it was gazing at the mirrored glass. And of course, what it saw was a peacock. But this peacock wanted to be the alpha male. He didn't want the competition. This was his patch. So he started attacking that peacock, smashing his beak into the glass, jumping up and clawing at it with his talons.

It was farcical to watch so much aggression. And this peacock reminded me so clearly, so vividly, that all our anger at the world, all our aggression, is really directed at ourself. Wherever we look, we are looking into a mirror. And that which perturbs us most is but a reflection of ourself. So let's try and remember this, next time we feel the urge to lash out at somebody, or something, apparently on the outside. Let's remember what that peacock did not: that we are looking at a mirror.