People Are Like Sea Urchins

Let's face it. Life is a bitch, and I am like a sea urchin.

Ever saw a sea urchin before?

Let me put this picture in your mind. It is a circular piece of organism, with spikes as long as 3 to 20 cm all around it's body (test, to be exact, the "hide" of this organism is called test), and it moves around with their adhesive, tube feet around the bed of the ocean. Their colours vary from black to brown, green, olive and dull purple. Some have spines (or spikes, as I like to call it) that are so sharp that they could poke through one layer of 4mm thick rubber into your skin. The tip of the spikes will then be broken off and be embedded under your skin, in certain cases, through your flesh.

These creatures lives in a community. They group together in one colony to keep the predators away. That is how the human community lives, isn't it?

So, now you have an idea what a sea urchin is.

Right, so where do I fit in?

I cannot live without people around, yet I cannot bear to be too close to one.

Get it?

No?

We are all people with our own quikes and quirks (i.e. characteristics, individuality, uniqueness etc. etc.). Our quikes and quirks are like the spikes on the sea urchin. We, our hearts, our feelings, our emotions, or whatever it is that people call it in the similar sense, are like the body in the centre. The body is soft and fragile, and thus is vunerable to any kind of attack.

People are like sea urchins. They cannot live outside the community, for they need one another to keep one another safe, yet they cannot live too closely together. You get stung by the spikes of the other.

So, is it possible for us all to live together, without hurting the other?

Of course!

I stood there on the jetty stretching out from the Pom Pom island that day, and looked at the colony of black sea urchins under the jetty. I saw that each of the sea urchins kept a safe distance in between one another. This way, they are able to keep the community safe from predators, and yet live peacefully with one another.

I guess we all have to learn from the urchins, eh?