You Should Feed Ducks The Good Bread
Colleen and I were binge-watching Gossip Girl last winter, and there are a few scenes where a stressed and irate Blair Waldorf wanders over to Central Park to feed the ducks. I told Colleen, "that sounds soothing — we should do that when the weather gets better". And then, as I’m wont to do, I promptly forgot. But Colleen takes note of moments like that, and a few months later she reminded me: we should actually go feed some ducks.
That’s how I found myself in Central Park last weekend, feeding ducks. It was the first beautiful day of spring in New York — the kind of day New Yorkers wait for, when everyone pours out to enjoy sunlight finally breaking through after a long dark winter. We had a picnic, strolled through the park, wandered amidst thousands of New Yorkers — and of course, we fed the ducks.
My wife (who I should preface is an extremely kind, caring, and loving person) and I got into a small debate over what kind of bread to feed the ducks. I insisted on buying them a nice loaf, and she felt it was unnecessary — the ducks would happily take our scraps. I argued that buying a good loaf cost us very little but could potentially make their day. Heck, it could even possibly be the best meal they ever have. She replied that there’s no way to know if they’d even notice the difference — to them, it might just be one carb versus another.
Three Philosphers Interject
I bought the dang bread, and she didn’t mind. I spent the whole afternoon thinking about that moment, and why it meant so much to me. In the end, I came back to three philosophers and their philosophies. Continue Reading →