Wow, you guys don't get out much, do ya?
heh
OK.
Some of you like fish because you're collectors, and love hunting for rare species or variants. Some of you love your fish as pets, and get emotional reward from taking care of them and talking to them. Some of you are driven by some competitive drive, and want the "best" possible tank to show off on the internet. Some of you just want a conversation piece that makes you look interesting and wealthy so you're a little more likely to be able to get into a gal's pants when she comes to see your place. Some of you love the creative potential a tank offers, and take pleasure in the artistic presentation of your decorations and fish. Some of you are fascinated with certain types of animal, and keep your fish as specimens. Some of you desire or place value in the traits of the fish that you keep ... pretty fish, or tough fish, you get the idea ... or very very expensive fish for people who want to be highly-sought after commodities themselves. Some of you have kids or don't have time and don't want to have to deal with a dog, so settle on fish as an easy pet. Some of you are kids who can't get other pets. Some of you, in an increasingly sterile, paved world, just find a deep, simple comfort in having a home filled with
life, be it fish, animal, or even plant.
A LOT of you focus your nervous anxiety into the fish tank, and build all kinds of comforting, obsessive-compulsive control-junkie rituals up around your fish.
I'm OK with all of the above motivations, and, like most fish people, am at least a dabbler in more than one them.
Another reason some people like to keep fish is because they like to watch them. And this gets us back to the point of this post:
Stoners like fish because there are few things better to do while you're high than watch fish.
Some stoners like to think a lot while they're high, and in a fish tank, there's always some new metaphor waiting to be discovered/invented, always something interesting to observe as they interact with one another and their environment, always a "story" to invent on the fly as you watch them interact. Always good to ponder ... is there really any meaningful difference between the "play" of fish and human children, the formation of hierarchies in a new tank or a junior high school, the pair-bonding of fish and the true loves of mankind? What interesting, complex and yet beautifully simple correlations can be drawn between the world in the fish tank and the world at large ... and which of these might even be true? Or useful?
"Thinky" stoners like to find patterns in the noise of reality. They are able to do so more freely while high. A busy, visually-interesting, unstressed fish tank is a metaphor-mine, an almost limitless storybook, a pattern-generator ... just waiting to be tapped into by a stoned mind.
And stoners, of course, also like to chill out, to relax, to let go of thought as far as is possible while awake - to turn the volume down on the barrage of bull#### from all sources that vies for our conscious attention all day long every damn day of our lives.
And watching fish is quite relaxing, especially if you're prone to like watching fish, (as stoners certainly seem to be). See
this link, for example; here's
more info if you want to look into it.
OK, so many stoners like fish and watching fish, but why do they work at local fish stores? Well, stoners, in addition to enjoying fish, are also are unlikely to embrace conventional values about what society tells us is supposed to matter in life and career path. (This is the drug-induced psychological foundation for the "motivation deficiency" of stoners - as in Office Space : "I'm not lazy - I just don't care!")
So, it should come as no surprise that stoners are willing to work for little money while being surrounded by a fish-filled environment that they can enjoy, rather than being miserable their whole lives climbing the corporate ladder, or busting their balls and spending all thought and time on starting a business, or working on their appearance and stressing out trying to find a suitably high-ranking mate ... all just so they can afford to squeeze out some kids, and perpetuate the cycle.
This is why I think fish store workers are oftentimes stoners.
The End.