Determination

Fritzi, the turtle, always loved corners. There was something about the convergence of the two sides of a wall that made him want to jam his little nose into that corner and try even harder to go deeper. But he also had a thing about going under objects. Most of them he could lift up as he tunneled beneath. But not the FOOTSTOOL.

____This footstool was a fixture in our kitchen. Parked out of the way, in back of the kitchen table near the oven, it was pulled out when needed to reach upper shelves. Fritzi was occasionally given a bit of freedom from his box by being allowed to run the kitchen floor. It didn't take him long to discover this footstool.

____We'd always find him trying his hardest to get under it. Now this footstool not only had legs but also a crosspiece that was just low enough to hit the top of his shell. So there he'd be, his little legs working frantically trying to push himself underneath. His head and front legs would be under it but his rear half just couldn't make it. His little claws would slip on the linoleum and without the friction to anchor himself, he couldn't raise the footstool to get all of himself under and through. But he kept at it relentlessly.

____In fact this footstool seemed to become an obsession, if turtles can develop "obsessions". We'd pick him up and put him down somewhere else in the kitchen but within minutes he found his way back to the place that held his beloved footstool. And the stamina! He could keep at it for hours at a time!

____One day we had used the footstool in the living room and forgot to put it back. Fritzi went to his corner - no footstool! He paced the kitchen .... NO FOOTSTOOL! When it was time to put him back in his box, we couldn't find him! Where was Fritzi? (he'd never left the kitchen before). We searched and searched and finally found him in the living room. There he was doing his little ritual with the footstool! And the footstool was in the MIDDLE of the room!

____Now that set us on trying some experiments. Could he locate the footstool anywhere in the house? Yup, he always wound up jammed under his beloved worn orange footstool. Could he ever get himself all the way under and through. Yes, if it was on the carpet, he'd brace himself and lift if up as he dug underneath (wow, it weighed a good 5 pounds to his 15 oz!). If he was successful in getting under and through would he walk away and explore other things in the room? Yes, then like a homing beacon, he'd return to the footstool and start the ritual all over again!

____Many years and different apartments later, Fritzi continued his encounters with the same footstool. What was it's attraction? Why, even when he could lift it up and go under did he return to do it again and again? Was he stupid and didn't realize that it was the same darn footstool he'd conquered just a while ago? Was he a pervert, enjoying the strain of "going at it"?

____After years of watching him interact with obstacles, it seems the footstool was special. Oh, he'd come back again and again to a pillow thrown on the floor to dig under it and bury himself. But next day when the pillow was gone, or placed in another room, he didn't go crazy looking for it. And yes, he recognized the footstool from day to day. One day it got a new coat of paint. He approached it perplexed. "Gee it looks like my favorite footstool, but it doesn't have the same worn color" he'd appear to be thinking as he walked around it and sized it up. But after one try to get under it, he KNEW it was his beloved.

____It was his challenge. The only familiar physical object that gave him the same challenge every time he encountered it. Was he stupid to keep trying to get under it when the linoleum kept him from getting traction? Perhaps. But then is a rock climber stupid for trying to get to the top of the mountain and slipping back down over and over again? And why didn't he just go around it? Because the very act of TRYING to get under it was physically satisfying.

____Sometimes life is like that even for us humans. Just like Fritzie, we discover an obstacle in our lives and HAVE to overcome it. We try and try but never make progress. If the obstacle is removed, we panic and HAVE to find it (or some equal substitute) because it has become part of our lives. Even if we manage to overcome the obstacle, we will seek it, or something similar, again and again because the challenge to overcome it has become a ritual that in itself gives us pleasure. Even when we know there is a way around it, we chose to"go at it" as before because it's a familiar way of dealing with the problem. The ritual is familiar, we know what to do and what to expect, and that is what makes it worth the effort (necessary) to go back over and over again.

____The footstool has been gone for years now. Fritzi now has a rock to take its place. He tries to mount the rock, thinking it's a female turtle. Or does he know by now it's not alive, but is attracted to the RITUAL he performs? The object and the ritual have become one, and thus has a life of its own.

© Leona Seufert


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