The Mayor, The Turtle, and the Two Banks

Once upon a time long ago when the campfires of wandering minstrals dotted the hills there was a great city built on the shores of a deep river. Half of the city was on the left bank and half on the right. There were many bridges between the two halves.

The left bank of the city was carefully laid out with straight streets and plenty of signs telling you what you could do. On the left bank the city was surrounded by a stone wall with very few gates or windows. Outside of the wall the world was filled with various things to be grabbed and used. The left bank also had many storehouses for holding carefully processed things. It had wonderful libraries filled with useful instructions on how to accomplish marvelous tasks. It may surprise you to learn, however, that in many ways the left bank of the city was smaller and simpler than the right bank.

The right bank of the city had very few straight lines. The streets had evolved organically and were curvy and interwoven. There weren’t a lot of signs telling you what to do. There was no well-defined boundary at the edge of the right bank. Instead the city gradually transitioned into the surrounding countryside, which was filled with other living things that had to be related to and worked with. The right bank had many wonderful ways of seeing and hearing and understanding what was going on in the present moment, both out in the world and in the city. It was bigger and more multi-dimensional than the left bank.

The mayor of the city regularly visited both banks. When she visited the left bank she wore her parrot cloak and when she visited the right bank she wore her owl cloak. These were no ordinary cloaks. Each gave her many different powers.

When she wore her parrot cloak she preferred to stay in the left bank of the city where she felt comfortable and knew what was going on all around her. She loved building on what she knew by adding in one small piece of information at a time. Her parrot cloak helped her develop complex and intricate skills. She spent a lot of time thinking about the past and imagining the future as she polished her skills over and over again.

When she wore her owl cloak she liked to travel and explore. She visited both the left and right banks of the city and also ventured out into the surrounding countryside. Her owl cloak helped her understand other people and the living world. It also gave her the ability to change size and explore different layers of the world. She loved seeing how everything is connected and influenced by what is going on in the different layers around it. When she was in her owl cloak she spent a lot of time in the present moment, not dwelling on the past or dreaming about the future, but being very aware of what was going on around her right now.

The parrots who live on the left bank of the city specialized in grasping and amassing ‘things.’ Both physical things and things like skills and recipes and programs. They like simple answers. When situations arise that don’t have simple answers they tend to get angry, jump to conclusions and latch onto the first available simple answer. They can become deluded get stuck in denial. Then they just make up stories about the outside world that they think explain things. Parrots don’t have empathy for other creatures or even their own body.

When the mayor visits the left bank the parrots try to keep her there for as long as possible by telling her about catastrophes she has to pay attention to. If there aren’t any good catastrophes they will create some so they can keep her attention. The parrots really don’t understand why the mayor ever has to visit the right bank. They find the owls that live on the right bank to be mysterious and difficult to understand.

The owls, however, understand the parrots fairly well. They know that the city needs the parrots to help them harvest and protect resources the city needs to survive. They also know that the parrots are not very good at understanding how to work with others or the larger world.

When times are good and the city seems to be safe and protected the mayor tends to spend too much time with the parrots, since they are very needy. She knows this is not good for the city so she had the habit turtles built.

Habit turtles have their own bridges over the river. Parrots are entrusted with driving the habit turtles and making sure they carry the mayor on her desired route. Since the habit turtle’s are steady and their routes are repetitive the parrots are even ok with driving them over to the right bank of the city, where the mayor frequently gets out and does mysterious things with the owls. Sometimes owls and other parrots ride along with the Mayor.

The mayor knows the owls are the only ones who can understand the larger world and how it is constantly changing. They are also the only ones who can understand the different layers of reality, many of which parrots simply can’t see. Metaphor, which is defining something by calling it something else, and stories with different layers of meaning are often required to understand the large and deep world. But metaphors and many layered stories are too complex for the parrots to understand so they simply ignore them.

When the city is working at its best here is how the mayor’s day goes: She is interested in something the owls have brought to her attention. She puts on her owl cloak and works with the owls to try to relate to it and see how it works. Then she puts on her parrot cloak and works with the parrots to look into the details and try to understand the parts it is made of. They develop a model of how the thing works. Then she puts her owl cloak back on and, using everything the owls and parrots know, she tries to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the new entity. This owl → parrot → owl rhythm the very heartbeat of the city.

Sometimes the owls get bored if they’re not getting out into the world enough. Then the parrots will make up stories about why the mayor should stay with them. Sometimes the parrots are so good at these stories that they trap the mayor on the left bank. She even forgets to ride on the habit turtles to visit the owls. Then the city gets into a parrot -> owl -> parrot rhythm where the mayor only receives small bits of information that the parrots feed her. This rhythm is dangerous since the parrots actually have no idea what’s going on in the world. When the mayor is trapped on the left bank she can’t see changes that are happening in the world. If she stays there too long the city will collapse, because it will get out of rhythm with its environment.

Even before it collapses a city run by parrots is not a pretty place to be. Parrots live in a mechanistic world where competition is more important than collaboration; where nature is a heap of dead resources, and where humans are weak and slow machines. This is a bleak world that only values efficiency and extraction. When the parrots are in firm control some of them do venture out to other cities where they try to weaken the inhabitants so they can control them and take their resources. They find this exciting.

When the city is working at its best with the natural owl -> parrot -> owl rhythm it’s a wonderful place to live. The owls regularly connect the city to the mystery and wonder that is unfolding in the large and deep world outside. Their rhythms create a musical dance which winds and curves and finds a meaningful and magical place in the world.

For a deep dive into the left/right brain topic see the definitive work by Iain McGilchrist: “The Master and His Emissary.”

For help developing empowering habits see James Clear: “Atomic Habits.”