The Lake vs. The Ocean. And The Power of Daabi.

The Lake vs. The Ocean. And The Power of Daabi.

The Ocean comes to the Lake and says, “Why not flow into me like all the others—like the rivers and streams?”

The Lake says, “I need to eat too. You have so much water, Mr. Ocean, why worry about me?”

The Ocean goes, “I need all waters to flow into me to maintain the New World Order of the Hydrological Cycle.”

The Lake retorts, “Well, the Perfect World Order is that I stay a lake, you an Ocean, and the rest whatever. This is good. This is balanced. All waters cannot flow into the Ocean. The Ocean would be too powerful. We need Balance. We need Ma’at.”

The Ocean replies, “I cannot accept that. The New World order necessitates that you flow into me. You can’t stand by yourself. You need me! You need to trade waters with others. Without me, you cannot trade waters with others. You cannot trade with others without coming through me. This can only help you.”

The Lake re-thinks. “Is it for so flimsy a motive that you’ve trekked all the way from the coast to me? No, Mr. Ocean, this can only help you. This can only hurt me. I trade my waters with all the streams that empty into me, and then I give back to these streams. We have our own cycle here, and it works for us. We don’t need an Ocean to do it!”

The Ocean grows angry. “If you don’t begin to trade waters with the others through me, I will destroy you.”

The Lake defies the Ocean. Daabi. The Lake insists on his resolution. The Lake insists on maintaining its Perfect World Order where power is balanced across the board.

The Ocean whips up a storm, a hurricane, and sea surges and empties its salty waters into the Lake to create imbalance. The lake becomes salty. There’s chaos. Fishes die. Still, the Lake does not budge. The Lake replenishes and remains resolute to maintain the Perfect World Order of Ma’at.

The Ocean goes to Mother Earth to ask for a favor. “Mother, I need you to tilt the land so that the Lake can flow into me.” Mother Earth scolds the Ocean, “Forkins! You are out of your mind. How do you tilt a round gravitational object? And why do you need more water?”

The Ocean, with no place else to go to force the hand of the Lake is left with only despair.

One could perhaps imagine now that the Ocean would pipe up and say: “Based on the evidence before me, dictating my terms to the Lake doesn’t work; let me try negotiating with the Lake in good faith as equals.” You would think that the Ocean would slap its cheeks with its palms and say, “Wow! That’s brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that before now?”

But the Ocean, because it’s inherently lazy and can barely be expected to hold its own nuts without suckling on all the rivers and streams that empty into it would probably be miserable because, you see, the Ocean’s global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Ocean acts baffled, regroups and tries again, making for quite an amusing spectacle.

But the Lake, because it is has a mind of Ma’at, born to traditions of old and trained by it, its answer will remain resolute: “Daabi!” is “Daabi.” No, is no! I will not become a river of waters. I am a Lake!