Caught red-handed

Dear You,

By all accounts, the lobster is possessed of a small and simple brain. But according to a book I've recently read -- The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson -- lobsters have a remarkably complicated existence. Catching one is likewise a simple yet complex act: bait the cage, drop it into the water, wait, then haul it up. The cage is complicated, as are the decisions about when and where to place it, when and how to haul it back to the surface, which lobsters to keep and which to throw back into the water . . .

I thought of all that this morning, in conversation over a cup of coffee. Where was I at that moment, and how had I arrived at that time and place? I was struck by the image of a cone -- like that of the entrance to a lobster trap. Years ago I must have had quite a wide range of choices; one by one I narrowed my opportunities. And there I was holding that cup of coffee.

When the lobster enters the cone, it is in the kitchen, and that leads to the parlor. Isn't that an engaging image to explain the reality of the lobster's situation -- in effect, a trap? The point is that the lobster, and I, cannot go back and choose differently. We are where we are.

Well, all analogy leaks, my philosophy professor intoned one afternoon in 1962. So does this one. I'm not being prepared for a pot of boiling water . . .

. . . am I?