Doug Reviews Jurassic Park

The following is my first ever attempt at a parable. It is inspired by a friend of mine, we will call him “JT.” Jesus taught in parables. Here’s the thing, I’m no Jesus, so be patient with me. It’s my first try. Usually I over state my point, making it very clear what I am trying to discuss. This one is different. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

There was once a wealthy man obsessed with dinosaurs. He dedicated all of his vast resources, time, energy and sanity to the possibility of seeing dinosaurs once again roam the Earth. He hired all the best minds to help him achieve his goal.

Finally, a breakthrough. A prehistoric mosquito was found mummified inside a nugget of fossilized amber. Inside the mosquito was a tiny drop of dinosaur blood. This scrap of DNA was enough to apply to the cloning procedure the wealthy man had developed and at last, his dreams came true: the rebirth of dinosaurs in our modern age!

The wealthy man wanted everyone to marvel at his creation. He wanted to share the majesty of the dinosaurs with the rest of the world.

He bought an island on which the dinosaurs would live. He went to great lengths to secure the island, ensuring the safety of the people who would come. He built large, heavy fences and electrified them. He built ditches around the fences to prevent the dinosaurs from getting through. He built walls and escape routes and emergency shutdown procedures and Plan C’s to back-up Plan B’s if anything were to ever go wrong.

Well, “best laid plans”, and all that. The wealthy man soon discovered what happens when you try to cage a dinosaur. The dinosaur will only stay happy until it discovers the cage. It will roam and eat and kill and live a fulfilled life, until someone puts up an obstacle blocking the path of the dinosaur.

Upon discovering said cage, a dinosaur will typically react by saying, “What the eff is this? They are trying to cage me in, limit where I can go and what I can do? Don’t they know I am a mother effin dinosaur?!”

Dinosaurs will typically follow this statement by tearing down the cage, rampaging through the island, and killing all the humans, even the ones who didn’t want to cage them.  Occasionally, some humans will survive. But these are usually the ones who knew going in that dinosaurs are dangerous and perhaps not to be trifled with.

And so it is with us. If we are hell bent on bringing dinosaurs to our island, we need to know going in that none of the intricate plans we create to box in the dinosaurs will work forever. A time will come when the dinosaurs reach the limits of their cage. And they will not react positively to the realization that they have been in a cage all along. Hopefully, when that day comes we are all huddled together in the helicopter flying us to safety instead of dropping a two in the outhouse, just waiting to be eaten.

And so it is for all men who attempt to cage a dinosaur.