Hmmm, what should we do with those who choose to make their living by taking advantage of our increasingly Wi-Fi and technology blue-sky world?
Take a moment to examine this photograph. It looks like nothing more than an innocuous photograph of a plant.
Now take a closer look – just slightly right of center, in the top half of the photograph, clutching the plant stem. Do you see it? It’s an insect known as a Praying Mantis which can be very difficult to pick out from the grass and plants where it is found.
The Praying Mantis gets its name from the upraised posture of its front legs which make it look like it is praying. But the Praying Mantis is a predatory insect which lies in wait – amazingly well camouflaged, both in shape and colour, to its environment – for other insects which it captures and devours.
I rather like the Praying Mantis. It reminds me to slow down, focus my senses and look for those hidden wonders that lie around us often undetected.
However, I can’t help but wonder if the person who named this prehistoric looking insect was aware of the double entendre inherent in its name. The Praying Mantis is very much a preying creature that uses its uniquely adapted body to its advantage in preying upon other insects.
And from there, my mind makes one of those sideways leaps of insight that being a weaver of metaphors (for better or for worse, you decide) has cultivated.
There are people among us who are very much like the Praying Mantis. Their modus operandi is lurking in the Wi-Fi shadows that swirl around us – sometimes remaining invisible and other times disguising themselves as someone else. We’ve all encountered them:
An e-mail that appears to be from a friend: Please help me. I’m travelling in Spain. All of my money and identification was stolen. I’m okay but desperately need some money to get home.
An e-mail that appears to be from your bank: There has been some suspicious activity on your account. Please use the website link below to access your account and verify your information.
They’re known as “phishing schemes” and they’re getting increasingly common. Somewhere out there, in the internet ether, there is a shadow community of metaphorical Praying Mantis people who lie in wait to cheat us out of our hard earned money.
The real Praying Mantis is simply doing what nature designed it to do. It is part of the natural circle of life. The metaphorical Praying Mantis people, on the other hand, are malevolent opportunists who lie, cheat and steal their way through life.
But here is what I believe: What goes around, comes around. All forms of evil eventually come home to roost – and payback is a bitch.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog
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Tags: metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · payback · phishing · Praying Mantis · Wi-FiNo Comments