Next time You Feel You've No Choice

Think of a flatfish.

Flatfish babies look like regular fish, with symmetrical eyes on either side. Then, as they grow older, their eyes begin their journey. One eye, left or right, decides to stroll over to the other side of the head, never to return, and never to look back and say, oh! I should go back from whence I came. Even more bizarre: the mouth stays in the same place, where it was when the flatfish was symmetrical. Thus, a conversation between two flatfish teenagers:

Teenager #1: [Cranky, irritable]: I hate becoming asymmetric. I hate the way it makes me feel. Like the world is on one side and I am on the other. Your eyes migrating today?

Teenager #2: [Sighing, despondent]: Yes.

Teenager #1: Mine are headed left, I think.

Teenager #2: Mine are moving to the right.

Teenager #1: Remind me again - why is this important to our survival?

Teenager #2: Because we must blend in with the seabed and no eye wants to face the seabed. Our eyes move up so we can flap over a bed of pebbles like a well-used rug.

Teenager #1: [Grumbling] One more example of what we have to put up with to survive.

Thank god, we're not flatfish.