The Organ Grinder's Monkey

The Image almost always recalled hearing the phrase Organ Grinders Monkey is of the old-time street musicians playing a barrel organ, while a trained monkey performed to the music. Art often makes money in strange, cute, and embarrassing ways. And sometimes the artist can be reduced to little more than a trained monkey themselves, bound to the whims and needs of something bigger and stronger. You must wonder who the real organ grinder is and who's the monkey. Who is performing and who is getting paid?

It seems society has, or is in danger of turning us all into a bit of both, and we cannot seem to find, change, or sometimes want to change to another other path than to grind. Grind at our jobs, grind at our social life, and grind in our mind. While It is essential you work for what you are seeking, not only for yourself but for your situation in life, most of our learning comes from the grind. And there is a deep satisfaction to see the fruit of your labor grow strong. But the question remains, who is performing and who is getting paid?

We are truly in a dangerous point in time in our grind, mentality wise. The very words you are reading are just one of millions of opinions you can support or reject, on the countless websites that exist today. If I had no scruples or morality, the seed I am capable of placing in your mind can stay with you forever and lead you into a decision you may later blame on me. You and I both woke up this morning bombarded with endless narratives of someone's version of the 'truth', and with so many networks and even more people behind the scenes of those networks, forums, etc, how much of what you’re choosing to believe wasn't crafted by someone else? How much of your mind do you really account for?

Do you believe your beliefs can't become someone else's tools? That someone smarter and stronger cannot possibly take you away from all that's familiar, place you in an overwhelming situation, dress you up however they wish, and make you dance to their music on your own little platform? And do you perform because you want to, or do you have to? How much of what motivates you is based off a system of reward, good food and comfort? How much of our good things aren't being used against us, with our complicity in all of it?

In the parable that this article is titled after, you wonder who bears the greater power, the organ grinder or the monkey. If one fails to play, the other won't dance, and if neither one performs, no one makes a profit. The performing monkey can get so caught up in its performance and in itself, it forgets were it all came from and what it costs, blindly accepting whatever it's fed as a reward. And if the organ grinder, the monkey's owner and caretaker, is cruel or sees it as nothing more than a weaker thing to be exploited, you can only imagine the monkeys he's destroyed. You can only imagine what kind of performing monkey the organ grinder must be in his own life, to feel that that was necessary.

So perhaps what's necessary is to ask ourselves who we are and what we're performing for. Do we perform, dance, and grind based the tune most benefitting us and others, or based on someone else's tainted expectations and changing whims? Are we grinding so hard we don't see what or who we're using, playing, or hurting in that promise of profit? Are we so caught up in making sure our performance looks good, and in our own appearance with all the arrogance implied, we're blind to the way we're being used? Are you the organ grinder, setting up others weaker than you to perform for your profit and amusement, casting them aside once all usefulness has run it's course?

Think about this with every thought, and wonder where exactly it comes from. Think about this with all that you read, and choose which seed of thought to water, and which to pluck out. Think about this in your grind, and question if the fruit of your labors was worth everything that went into it. Think about this with your friends and family, because whatever you're grinding at will be all you think about. Think about this in yourself, because the last thing any of us should define ourselves as is performing monkeys, with no thought or will beyond our little cage at the end of the day.