Cavalier Cliché
Jon’s precognitive mind didn’t know he had eggs. He ate eggs, preferring them sunny-side up to scrambled and scrambled always over poached or boiled. He colored eggs, dipping them carefully into bowls of dye at Easter for his younger brother and sister to hide and find. But he didn’t know he had any.
Until people started telling him what to do with his, that is.
Since being old enough to understand and to remember, coaches and teachers, parents and grandparents, podcasters and TED talkers –voices of authority, people “in the know”-- have inundated him with unsolicited assistance. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” they say.
Jon takes umbrage with the notion.
A natural athlete with long sinewy limbs and eyes that transfer information others often miss, Jon has long been good at zeroing in. He doesn’t see compartment lines within himself.
“Keep your options open,” pundits and loved ones alike forewarn. “Don’t be so quick to buy in.” “Give yourself some space and time.” “Diversify,” they echo like sheep milling around in a circle with nowhere important to go. “Don’t trust you will recover from a full-investment loss.”
At every turn, it seems, people tell him what he needs not to do with his eggs. Such hardline advice gets itchy under his skin.
“They’re MY eggs!”
Respectfully, he stands staunch against well-meaning but disparaging directives. Mistrust is not trust at all to Jon, so it is not his deal. He only grows when rooted all-in.
“I know no other way,” he argues. “My eggs,” he says, demonstratively intertwining his elongated spider-like fingers while making a nest with his hands, “are all in one basket.”
Such singleness of purpose sometimes makes people fidget. Relentlessly, he is cautioned to let the aperture open.
“But it’s not closed,” he clarifies. “It’s just all encompassing. I’m a WHOLE person. One not interested in the business of putting my things in drawers.”
He softens as he thinks about his eggs. The way a shell can crack and a crooked line can run. Jon cares deeply but he’s a gambler.
“I don’t need to win,” he says at last, more for release than explanation. “But I’m trained to bet on me.” As he bends down to pick up his basket, the cliché slides off his shoulders like a runny broken yolk. In search of a waiting wager, chin up, he walks his way.