Analysis

Your Monday Vitamin

I hope you find this as engaging as I do.

Analysis

It’s futile, like a man trying to explain to a deer
what the indoors is. First of all, the deer will just
run away before the man has a chance to speak,
because men have historically slaughtered their kind,
and the deer, on some level, knows this. And even
if the deer didn’t run away, the language barrier
would render the man’s words meaningless.
And even if the deer did somehow grasp
the meaning of the words, a deer doesn’t carry
knowledge the way people do, so the meaning,
once communicated, would be forgotten.
And even if I remembered, it’s like, Who cares?
What you’re basically describing is just a denser
version of a forest but with fewer ways to escape,
the deer says, leaning back in its leather chair,
a little notebook in its hoof, a little impatience
in its voice, because you’ve been deflecting again,
wasting half the session. You should apologize—
you know this but can’t make your mouth
form the words. Which, actually, is the type of issue
you should be spending this time exploring.
Instead, you push forward: I just think
it’s important to acknowledge that we are literally
indoors right now. Your office is an example
of the indoors. But the deer just looks at you
with pity in its gorgeous eyes.

Mikko Harvey, from Yale Review