Mini Moral Stories By My Inner 10 Year-Old, Episode 2

The Little Boy Who Tried To Be Balanced

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a little boy, his siblings, and his parents.  They were not obscenely rich, but they were certainly not in want.  The little boy's parents were generous, but practical, and taught him to work for what he wanted, though he was never in need.

Once the little boy began to go to public school, he was not the popular kid, but he had plenty of friends, and good friends at that.  They always had fun, and rarely got into trouble.  Any trouble they did get into was harmless and, as that word implies, they never harmed anyone with their hijinks and shenanigans.  The little boy's parents knew this, and liked his friends.

The little boy's parents believed strongly in being the kind of person who possessed a certain quality which they called "balance".  When the little boy ate, they told him to be balanced, so he ate some vegetables with his burger.  When he played outside with his siblings, they told him to be balanced, so he played "cops and robbers" with his brother, and "tea party" with his sister.  Then he balanced his playing outside with reading, and his reading was balanced between science, history, and more fantastic tales of talking animals and far-off lands.  He saw value in the idea of balance, and he strove for it.

One day the little boy spent the night at a friends house.  He had a lot of fun playing video games, learning songs, and discussing which girls at school were cute (though obviously they were still filled with cooties).  The next day, another of his friends called, and wanted to know if we would go see a movie with them.  The little boy had done his chores for the day, he had read and played outside, and he was feeling quite balanced.  But when he asked his parents for permission to go, they said no!  Confused, the little boy asked why, "why can't I go? I have finished my chores, and I have nothing else to do tonight!"  "You went out last night." They said to him, "You need to strike a balance, you can't go out every night."

The little boy was confused.  He sat in his room that night and tried to read but was distracted.  His parents' reasoning seemed faulty, but he just wasn't sure how, and the thoughts of how much he wanted to see the movie were distracting him.  He thought about what it meant to be balanced.  Did it mean preventing yourself from taking opportunities, simply because you had had similar opportunities recently?  That was the only thing he could take away from the event.  He did want to be balanced though, so he decided that that was what he must do.

He began taking only every other opportunity to see his friends.  He sat with them at lunch less often (though he wasn't quite able to stay away as often as it seemed he should), played with them at recess less often, and sat next to them in class less often.  Soon it became easier, because they sought him out less, played with him less, sat next to him less.  But rather than settling on a balance, the trend continued!  When his friends stopped trying to see him at all, the little boy reached out to them more, but he found that if he reached out to them, and they reciprocated, he would have to turn them down, and they stopped accepting his invitations.

He still tried to make friends, but none stuck around for long with someone who seemed so aloof and calculated.  By the time he reached college age, he had no friends at all, and was continually "off-balance" because of it.  One day, while walking idly on a curb, he lost his balance for the last time, fell into traffic, and never had to worry about friends ever again.

Sometimes it's okay to not be balanced, as long as you fall on the right side of the curb.

Mini Moral Stories By My Inner 10 Year-Old, Episode 1

The Little Boy Who Cleaned His Room

                Once upon a time there lived a kind, unassuming little boy.  He lived in the woods with his mother and father.  As he grew up, he went to school and did all of the things little boys like to do.  He would often play outside, pretending to be a cowboy or astronaut or dinosaur.  When he was out in the forest, he also enjoyed making friends with the animals, and caring for the plants.  He loved the earth and everything on it. 

                Not all was sunshine and fun in the little boy’s life.  You see, the little boy’s mother was very insistent that he keep his room clean.  This was very hard for the little boy, who was often daydreaming and playing instead of searching for chores to do.  When he went to bed at night, he left his clothes on the floor right where he took them off.  When he read a book, or drew a picture, he put it next to his bed or on a table where he could easily reach it when he wanted it.  The little boy’s room was always cluttered, filled with the things he used and wore, none of it organized, but all of it accessible.  When he was forced to clean his room, he tended to lose things, and even the greater freedom of movement could not compensate for the sterile gloom that engulfed him as he sat in a room that looked un-lived in and unfriendly.

                When the little boy’s mother cleaned, she used big, loud vacuum cleaners and sharp-smelling, brightly-colored chemicals.  She scrubbed everything, and even the wooden floors and furniture supported an artificial glow, reflecting the beams of light from lamps unencumbered by dust.  Meanwhile, in the little boy’s room, dust bunnies scampered beneath the bed, cliffs of books towered over sweeping savannahs of jeans and t-shirts, and the most efficient pathways from door to closet to bed to bookshelf cut river-valleys of clear floor through the landscape. 

                As the little boy grew older, his mother complained more and more about his room, so he cleaned more and more.  He picked up his clothes, toys and books.  He used the vacuum and the chemicals.  The cliffs and valleys disappeared, the landscape became flat and uninteresting, the dust bunnies died off.  The more the boy’s room was cleaned, the more energy, vacuuming, and chemicals were needed to hold back the entropy, which until the boy began cleaning had been kept in a natural equilibrium with the environment.

                Outside of their little home, power plants and factories sprang up in greater numbers to provide the chemicals and vacuums, and the electricity to power them.  They mined the earth for resources, leveling the cliffs and filling in the valleys.  They dumped the byproducts from creating the vacuums and chemicals into the rivers.  The landscape became flat and uninteresting, the animals died off.  As the little boy and his mother increasingly forced order on the inside of their home, the outside world which the little boy loved so much became forced into order in an effort to sustain the supply of cleaning products. 

                One day the boy went outside and looked around.  He wanted to go explore the forest, but it was gone.  His animal friends had all left or were dead, killed by the pollution.  The small plants were also gone or dead.  And even the wooden stumps and rivers supported an artificial glow, reflecting the beams of light from a sun encumbered by smog.  

He later died of lung cancer and sadness.

Don’t clean your room.