People can grow horns, only if...

Today was one of the most fun school days of my 2 plus years in school. Arranging was fun even though me and Celester was fail. Were supposed to do an interlude for Michelle Branch's Everything. I was excited because I had an idea in my head to do a down-tempo interlude. Celester was indecisive as usual, or he just didn't want to voice out his ideas, so we went ahead with mine. We only had about an hour to do this. So we tried to find synth sounds, synth lines and all that. After 45 minutes, we realized it'll take too much time so we deleted everything. In the end all we had was this crappy guitar solo with fail tapping. We suck.

After that was free lunch buffet courtesy of SP and our thick skins. Nothing much to say about CS. Fast forwarding to an interesting conversation between Shun and Leon, which in the end a few of us got involved. I knew where both sides were coming from, and agreed and disagreed with some things that were said, but I tried to stay out of it. So anyway, if Shun or Henry ever reads this, do try to understand what my story means. And do remember that, as they say "all analogies break down at some point". But the main point still stands, one non-parallel point doesn't invalid the entire argument. Enjoy.

In the land of Normandee, there was a large lush pasture. On this pasture there lived a herd of goats and between this herd, there were mainly 2 species of goat: the horned and the hornless. The horned goats were highly regarded as the horns represented masculinity, supremacy and nobility. Moreover, there was nothing the hornless goats could do to fight against them.

It was known that the horned goats could lose their status by shedding their horns or having their horns torn off by other horned goats, but hornless goats could not up rise in status because there was no way that hornless goats could sprout horns out of nowhere. These goats accepted their fate.

One day there was a commotion amidst the herd. Apparently one of the hornless goats claimed that he knew a hornless goat who grew a pair of horns overnight. His secret - he had jumped up and down enough times. This caused an uproar among the goats because if it was true, then there would be a social disruption. Hornless goats could rise in status and fight against the horned goats who had previously made their lives miserable. There might be hope after all.

The deal was simple. A hornless goat basically had to jump up and down, with one foot off the ground for a sufficient number of times. It was not mentioned specifically how many times. If you did not jump using the proper way, with one foot off the ground, the horns would not grow. This goat, Jim, who brought the news was immediately held in high regard, and many went to ask for his advice. One day Billy, one of the hornless goats in the herd came up to Jim and said,

"Hey Jim, so all I have to do is jump, right?"

"Yea, once you jump enough times using only 3 feet, the horns will grow."

So Billy jumped with one foot off the ground. He jumped for 5 minutes and asked,

"So, is this enough?"

Jim replied, "Have you grown any horns yet?"

"No."

"Then keep jumping, you probably haven't jumped enough."

So Billy carried on jumping for the next 2 hours. He finally stopped and asked,

"So, is this enough?"

Jim replied once more, "Any horns growing yet?"

"Not yet."

"Then keep on jumping, you probably still need to jump more."

So Billy went on jumping. Everyday he jumped for 8 hours, and still no sign of any horns growing soon. Finally he went to Jim, furious.

"You told us that if we jumped enough times, horns would grow. I've been jumping for 8 hours everyday for the past 3 months and yet not even the smallest hump is on my head. What's going on?"

Jim replied, "I told you that if you jumped enough times, horns will grow. If you haven't grown any horns, it's because you've not jumped enough. Plus you might be jumping wrongly, you're supposed to jumped with one foot off the ground AND every time you land you have to bend your knees. Have you been doing that?"

"No, but can you guarantee it'll work?"

"Yes, I assure you. Just do everything I said, and when you've jumped enough horns will grow. I promise."

Billy went back and continued. This went on until he finally died of exhaustion. The other goats heard about this and gathered around Jim demanding explanations. One of them asked,

"We heard about Billy's death and it is said that he jumped so much but not a single horn grew. We demand an explanation."

Jim calmly replied, "It's simple really. He hasn't jumped enough."

Tom, from among the crowd stood up and asked, "So when will we know how much is enough? You wouldn't tell us. No one knows!"

Jim responded, "Well you'll know you've jumped enough when your horns grow."



Caught onto the bullshit story yet? Now on to Part II of the story.

In the herd of goats, the females were generally separated by species. The horned males found the hornless females too dirty and low-class and the horned females were kept by their mates and not allowed to mingle with the hornless. Thus it was not known that Thomas, the horned and Miriam, the hornless, were having an affair. This resulted in the birth of Michael. Kids did not grow horns until they reached 5, thus it was impossible to tell horned kids from hornless kids. When Michael was born, he was born into Miriam's family and Thomas wanted nothing to do with the kid. Miriam was paid huge loads of Wyvil grass (a rare type of grass) to remain silent about the incident.

However this was threatened by the fact that there was a 50% chance that Michael might grow into a horned goat. Michael grew up as a hornless and Miriam oft told him that being horned or hornless didn't determine who he was, but what he set himself out to do. So from a young age, he wasn't bothered with social status.

His friends on the other hand, wanted to be horned so much that sometimes they'd take snails' shells and stick them to their head with oak sap, pretending to be horned. Michael usually couldn't be bothered with this. But the other kids knew that no matter how much they wanted it, they couldn't grow horns. Their parents taught them that since they were young. When Michael was 5 and a half, what happened shocked him and Miriam. He was beginning to grow horns. Michael was obviously not bothered with it, although quite curious but he didn't let it determine who he was. He wasn't interested in the whole horn deal. But since he had horns, he used it to his advantage.

Eventually Michael didn't grow up to become what he was supposed to be - living as a horned goat, but as a hornless goat with his mother.

So this is my answer to Henry and Shun. Good night.