Think of a laboratory mouse in a cage (22 cents)

The cage is rectangular and has three or four mouse-treadmills. The circular kind, shaped like a ferris wheel. The mouse runs and runs on the bottom, the treadmill goes around and around, and the mouse gets nowhere.

The mouse gets tired of the particular treadmill it is on, and moves to one of the others, where the scene is simply repeated.

On and on it goes, infinitely running and changing treadmills. You would expect it will do this 'til its last breath.

The mouse is frustrated. It wishes it were not on a treadmill. It believes that there must be a way to combine the treadmills, so it does not have to go from one to another. Maybe this would happen if it went faster,....or slower. The mouse knows that if it could only bring the treadmills together, it would end the confusion of its life and enter into that period of bliss and relaxation that has always escaped it.

This is what I thought of the night before last, as I listened to Ariel Dorfman speak at the Nextbook Author Series. Ariel Dorfman, on the Anglo treadmill, the Latino treadmill, the Jewish treadmill, the defender-of-the-downtrodden treadmill, the writer treadmill, the talking head treadmill, the academic treadmill, the family treadmill.

Whew. If only he didn't seem to approach everything just like my imagined laboratory mouse.