A Collection of Allegories and Anecdotes provided by Life

• There was a man who picked up a parrot from the store. Each time he visited the store, the parrot sales lady would give him some wisdom about parrots, but the her wisdom had broader implications. Once, she said (paraphrasing): the parrot will need to be taken out of his cage and given another area to play during the day, otherwise, he will eventually decide that the cage is his home and he will then need to defend it, i.e., start biting people. Once he starts biting, it begins a downward spiral relationship with whoever claims him. Humans lay claim to an area as home, and defend it no differently than the parrot. Maybe we are meant to become greater than the parrot. That may difficult to do while some want to "bite" us.

• There was a child who refused to go out into the sun. When challenged, the child explained: "humans only have 7 layers of skin and that were one to lose them, it would certainly spell certain death.". The child's belief was a misunderstanding of a sunburn which had caused some peeling of his skin after a sunburn and not understanding that skin can regrow. The child's belief had paralyzed him and made him afraid of the sun. He was treating things that were temporary as though permanent, and afraid of things that are permanent.

• There was a man who was driving his family home one day. He saw a woman walking on the side of the road with her child. "How dangerous.", thought the man to himself, which he then verbalized. The wife of the man responded, compassionately: "Maybe she doesn't have any money and has no other option than to take her child with her". The husband responded: "Well, there is always a way." Later that day, the same family was at Walmart, and when they tried to start their car, it refused to start - it wouldn't even make a starting sound. The husband checked all the fuses and usual suspects, but found nothing out of the ordinary. The husband said, "Well, let's just use Uber (a car service) to get home.". Unfortunately, this would not work because we had too many passengers and the baby was getting hot and needed to get home . Finally, after exhausting the options, the wife said: "Well, let's walk home" Home was only 2 miles away from the Walmart. So the family walked home due to having no other way. After arriving home, the wife and the husband got into the other car to go back and get the car left behind at Walmart. Upon arrival, the car started immediately, and as of this writing, a year later, hasn't had problems starting since. The lesson seems to be being careful with one's judgment towards others in stressful states. Perhaps we should have offered the woman a lift instead.

• The birth process itself. Generally babies arrive head first followed by their rear end, but not always.

• The milk production for nursing mothers responds to the saliva of the infant and produces the type of milk the baby needs and provides the type of anti-bodies needed. If it is true that life is but a dream, and we are in our mother's womb, perhaps she provides us exactly what we need to grow.

• Some moments are thin - death, birth, having a gun pointed at you - these are times when we are most real.

• There was a man that was going on trips to fix his old house he wanted to rent out. Sometimes when going on these trips, he would scan his garage and tools to find what he needed for the trip. Some things would tend to jump out at him - as though they were saying: "take me with you". On some trips he would ignore these "messages" and would regret it when he discovered he needed the tool. If life is a dream or journey, the tools that he needed could be a type of symbolism for something that he needed for his journey through life. A hammer could represent concentration of force to a specific problem. A tape measurer could represent the way he has measured his life. The glue gun could represent some things needing to be connected together. The possibilities are wide and varied.