To be engaged in an experiment in ornamental fish breeding means that you have the opportunity to build a scale model of an integrated world. In addition, if you listen to the lessons taught by fish, you will have the chance of laying the hands on some of the causes of failure and success in many change projects.
The advantage of this experience is that it shortens your time rapidly, because ornamental fish are creatures that are more sensitive towards environmental changes than other domestic animals, as they are quickly affected by heat, cold, water and food quality. For that, it is faster to see success as well as this world collapses rapidly. It is a sample of events when shortened in seconds or hours, you do not need years to see the world of fish grow and fills you with delight, as this world may collapse in front of you in a few seconds.
In the world of fish, there is no room for error; they protest against any imbalance in their world, showing the effects of the disease quickly along with the changes and raising alarms before the problem gets any worse.
Unlike the human world, where the wrong is adorned, the harmful effects of our deeds are hidden through our complicity, deceiving ourselves and raising falsely the banner of victory while we are defeated, or giving up in despair while being one–step away from victory.
I have been attracted since my childhood to that life lying beyond the glass. As a matter of fact, at the age of 14, I had had an experience of building a world of nothingness, not just building it, but also preserving and leading it to progress. As for my friends who had a similar experience in the same period, they had not been successful. It is true that they had been able to find the world of fish, but they had failed to manage it; as a result, their fish died and their world disappeared.
When I grew up, I also saw worlds collapsing and dreams fading, I saw an eagerness to find a new world enjoying freedom, but I was shocked when I found out reluctance to manage it well. I saw an excessive celebration of the first step, to discover later that it was the first and last step. We see that we neither feed fish nor care about the cleanliness of water…and then we scream and ask why our dreams die!
I realized from a very young age that making a successful world would be subject to essential rules, so I bought books specializing in fish farming to understand this world and know the rules that govern it. I realized early on that science forms the basis of every successful work, so how would the case be if we want to establish an integrated world?
I have had the experience and have constructed a planet of fish as failure and success have been taking turns on me, though the latter prevailed in the end. I have worked on this planet as a doctor treating fish, an engineer who provides life-saving systems, a social reformer who adjudicates disputes among them, a policeman who punishes offenders, and a rebel who protects the oppressed. However, this has not been enough when I was making mistakes; the planet has not flattered me for my good actions are more than the bad ones, nature does not flatter. What matters is the practical ability to prevent damage arising from my bad actions. It has long considered me a criminal when dozens of fish die due to my neglect.
This fact has led me to believe in causality. And whenever I failed, I got convinced that I broke the rule of that world, there was no puzzle…each failure is a sign of breakdown of a rule, and failure was never a result of fish conspiracy. There was no personal enmity between me and them, and I do not think they were committing suicide just to spite me!!
When I am asked…why do my fish die?! This question reflects practically the nature’s conviction of the inquirer, as if saying that he violated the rules. Then, I seek the defect in the details management. It is not enough to say, “I did what I had to do,” but you should have done what you had to do in the right way, and you will not find out the correct way until you stop repeating general statements that are closest to slogans, thinking that it is the best way to build the world. You will not figure out the right way until you take the fact seriously and keep on looking for the detailed answers. It is not enough to say that you fed the fish when they were hungry and that you did your best, to discover then that you filled it with food to show how generous you are, which caused water to rot.
The more sensitive the world we want to build is, the more the general statements that are repeated without providing detailed and sound answers reflect the futility of life. The reason for this is that you will discover that as these general statements are introductions to life, they may also be the shortest path to death. On behalf of the slogan “the right of fish to clean water”, I killed my fish one day when I started pouring clean tap water on them without removing the chlorine from it, to discover later that the chlorine is toxic to fish. The interval between repeating the slogan of “clean water” and the massacre… was a blink of an eye, no more.
Written By: Wael Adel
Translated By: Zoulikha K