Have You Ever Read....

"The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister? It tells the story of a fish covered with beautiful scales who, when asked by a smaller fish to give him one, rudely refuses. His other friends hear of this and thereafter refuse to play with him. He then asks his only remaining friend, the Starfish, what he should do, and the Starfish directs him to the Wise Octopus. The Octopus advises that he should consider sharing some of his scales. So he does, with one little fish, and feels much better about himself. Soon, the others hear that he's giving his scales away, and come around for theirs. Soon, eveyone has one shiny scale and everybody's happy and friends again.
I have a couple issues with this story. The first is Rainbow Fish's rude refusal....there's no need to be rude about it. More heinous than that is his friends abandonment of him....has he got to buy his friends with pieces of himself? Sharing is a wonderful quality and should be encouraged...however...should anyone be forced to share until there's nothing left of themselves? Until everyone is exactly the same, with no shining stars left to stand out? What sort of friends were they that they had to be bought with shiny things? If they wanted to share the rainbow fishes beauty, they could have looked about on their own...made themselves into what they wanted to be, what they wanted to look like without guilt tripping Rainbow Fish into giving himself away. What he did at first, his rude refusal, was wrong. His friends behavior, though, was atrocious. I'm jus' sayin'.