How to Use This Book
This is a combination of a slightly short novel for kids over 8 and a self-help guide for the people who care about them. There is a section in the back of the book with discussion questions for many of the themes in this book. Please feel free to read it in whatever order makes sense to you. Ok, maybe not in whatever order. If you read it from right to left or back to front, it won’t make any sense at all. In these pages is an adventure of aquatic proportions. It’s about finding out who you are and figuring out what to do about that.
Prologue
This is Edwin. He is an odd-looking fish. At least that’s what everybody tells him. Well, they tell him he’s a fish, anyway. Not much of a tail for a fish. The scales are wrong, too. The fins are a bit, well, grabby. More on that later.
Edwin swam somewhat awkwardly. He tried eating some algae of a nearby coral with his mouth. Unsuccessfully. Then he took off some seaweed covering his grabby fins, grabbed the food, and slipped the seaweed back on. He looked around to make sure nobody saw it. Then he chewed the algae thoughtfully.
Edwin’s life is about to get very interesting. As far as he knows and everyone around him knows, this small tide pool is the whole world. But don’t tell him that. You’ll spoil the adventure. Then he won’t get to meet the octopus. Or the eel. Keep an eye out for a puffer fish named Daedalus. He’s almost figured out that he’s in a children’s book. Try not to let him see you looking at him. He might just figure it out.
Will anyone believe him, though?
Chapter 1
In an ocean far away, a group of sea creatures lived in a world surrounded by rock. Filled and refreshed with seawater and with plenty of light trickling in, a whole underwater world lived undisturbed. Purple, spiked, sea urchins nestled next to brightly colored corals of pink and green. Bright, yellow angel fish swam and nibbled coral. Sparkly, silvery fish dashed around in groups. Brown, speckled sculpins wiggled in place and camouflaged themselves in the sand so that all you could see was their eyes. They were pretty content in their home with the skywater above and anemones and snails and other animals around. It was beautiful and peaceful.
Nobody even thought about leaving this place because they believed that was all there was. Great currents of water sometimes dropped things from the skywater. Some said there was something beyond the wall, but they were dismissed because, well, it just did not make sense. Nobody—well, nobody who mattered—had seen anything from outside the walls, so it must not be true.
In this lovely place lived a fish named Edwin who never felt at home anywhere because nobody else was like him. He couldn’t swim like the others. He sort of hopped around which was very awkward. His scales were all wrong, he didn’t have much of a tail, and he was so embarrassed when eating that he often ate by himself. He didn’t want anyone to notice that he had to eat with his fins.
Edwin’s family had found him as a little one. They were ever so slightly embarrassed about Edwin’s appearance. They were kind fish, and even though he was odd, they did their best to love him anyway. They encouraged him to keep practicing his swimming, and they just knew he was going to get it right someday. He just needed to keep trying.
This day was gray with little glints of light poking in through the skywater, above.
In the yellow and green coral nook where they ate breakfast, Edwin talked with his mom and dad.
“Edwin”, his mom, said, “Look, I found you some more rocks for your scales. Here’s some more glue for your shells. And, you will look so great today. Your friends at school will be so impressed. And remember not to show those grabby fins, dear.”
Edwin examined the rocks and shells happily and then paused.
“Mom?” asked Edwin.
“Yes?” she said as she brought a package over that was wrapped in some seagrass. She looked at him curiously.
“Do you ever wonder why other kids don’t cover themselves in shells and rocks? I mean the sculpins hide in the sand…and that’s different. And Riley blends into the background when she wants to. Why do we do this?” Edwin asked.
His mom considered this. She looked startled.
“Well, I don’t know what I’d be if I weren’t a fish. Not very popular at all,” she said and she smiled. Her smile had cracks around the edges like she was trying too hard. She changed the subject.
“Well, what else would you be? Are you a clam?” she asked. She giggled and poked at Edwin.
“No,” said Edwin.
“Are you a coral?”
“No,” said Edwin with a giggle.
“Are you a snail?!” she asked incredulously.
Edwin giggled uncontrollably. “No Mom.”
“That’s settled then. Try these new ones. I got them from your Aunt Nora.” His mom opened the package.
Edwin eyed the package with admiration and said, “Thanks, Mom. These rocks are very glittery.”
While eating his morning kelp flakes, his dad said, “Ever since we found you as a little fish, I’ve been a little worried about how you will fit in. But I believe your tail will grow in just fine. The Great Hand provides. I think you’ve almost got it right. Have fun on the school trip.”
His dad eyed him meaningfully and said, “Oh, and praying to the Great Hand wouldn’t hurt.”
“Praise its Pinkness,” Edwin said automatically. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll get it right one of these days.”
Chapter 2
A short distance away, a puffer fish swam around and investigated the algae on a rock with interest.
“That’s strange,” said the puffer fish.
He managed a curious look on his face--which was difficult for a puffer fish to do. He swam over to the other side of the rock. He looked around and then appeared to look at us and then shook his head.
“Yes, it’s happening over here, too,” he said.
The puffer fish, whose name was Daedalus, swam over to a different rock and then looked behind him.
“I feel like I’m being watched…. it’s as if someone is talking about me,” said the puffer fish. “Here we go again.”
He swam off behind some fan coral.
Meanwhile, at the playground before school that morning, Edwin was talking to his friend Riley. She was a goby fish whose body seemed to change colors as you looked at her.
“You know, I think you’ve almost got the scales right. They are looking very glittery with those oyster shells. Let’s see how you do at school.” She shimmered slightly and seemed to fade into the background slightly and then came back into view.
Edwin smiled, “I can’t wait to see what they think.”
“We’re gonna have a great day at the field trip today. We’re going to explore the wall!” said Riley excitedly.
Edwin, instead of swimming, wobbled sideways excitedly.
Riley stared at him even more open-mouthed than usual. “--What was that?” gasped Riley. Riley’s scales changed a bit to match the background.
“What was what?” said Edwin.
“You scuttled. I saw you scuttling. Nobody scuttles,” said Riley. Riley slowly uncamouflaged herself.
“Oh darn. I’ll be more careful.” Edwin seemed embarrassed. “You’re pretty good at camouflage, you know.”
“I’m great at blending in,” Riley agreed. “You can do it, too. It’s better than sticking out, right?”
They swam on for a bit. And took in the scenery. The skywater brought in lots of light that shimmered all around the school play area. Brightly colored anemones clustered around a deeper area of rock. Clams and other mollusks did clam things.
Over a dozen glittering fish moved together and darted around as one. They were beautiful and graceful and fast. Unfortunately, they were very un-Edwin.
“Wow. I wish I could do that!” exclaimed Edwin. “The swim team is so fast.”
“Beautiful and annoying,” complained Riley.
As they swam around some yellow coral, two sculpins jumped out from their hiding place in the sand and took the seaweed right off of one of Edwin’s fins. Doing so revealed Edwin’s fin which looked like it could pick things and even grab them. The Sculpins yelled out, “Nice fins rock boy!” And laughed.
“I’ve got this Edwin,” she said.
To the sculpins
, she yelled out, “Keep swimming gill-brain! Eric, you jerk.”
“Whatever Riley Smiley!” mocked one of the sculpins, named Eric.
The sculpins swam off. Edwin sulked and then tried to cheer up.
“It’s ok.” Edwin said, “I’m just not fitting in well enough. Sculpins are experts at fitting in by camouflage. Maybe they’re showing me how to put on my scales better. I just need to get better at this.”
He started putting on some more seaweed.
Riley helped and said, “Let’s get you covered up and you’ll fit right in again. There. No one can tell.“ They hurried toward the school.
A small, spiny fish sat on the old statue. It was made of clear rock of some forgotten material. One could see the letters that spelled out “anta.” It was covered in algae and largely ignored. The small, spiny fish interrupted them.
“Doom!” it said.
“What?” said Riley, startled.
“The Great Hand is coming!” said the little fish.
“Praise its Pinkness.” Riley and Edwin said automatically. “Yes. Yes. It’s always coming though, right, Jed?”
“It brings the taco!” the fish said emphatically.
“Wait. Jed. What’s a taco?” asked Edwin.
Jed the spiny fish stopped. Its eyes twitched a little. Edwin waited.
“I don’t know…” it said dejectedly.
“Um. Ok. Bye, sir,” said Riley. She grabbed Edwin as if to leave.
Jed the spiny fish, renewed with vigor, began again.
“The Hand…!” said Jed.
And Edwin and Riley had left.
(end of free sample of story portion)
Commentary, Self-Help, & Discussion:
The Story Behind the Story and Discussion Questions
Introduction:
Stories are great ways to make ideas stick. When I tell short stories to illustrate a point, my clients remember them better than when I just tell them about a cool idea. That’s what this book is about.
When I was five years old, I was frustrated with not understanding people. I often felt alone and weird. Getting along with people didn’t come easily, so I studied people and observed them. I didn’t feel like I was a part of anything. I frequently said or did the wrong thing. Why did the adults apologize when they put me on the girl’s tee ball team, but let a girl stay on the boy’s team without incident? Why does it hurt someone’s feelings when you are honest sometimes and not at other times? What are the rules and how do I learn them? Well, I had no idea and it was like going into a dark forest. So, I decided to create a map and leave a trail for others to follow. I declared my desire to figure out the problem to my mom one day (allegedly around 5 years old) and since then and I haven’t stopped.
Another awkward and intelligent person was Richard Feynman. I am inspired by one of his quotes:
“If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it.”
Richard P. Feynman
I have a passion for learning how to explain complex ideas as simply and usefully as possible. I find the process rewarding and many of the people in my life appreciate it, too.
Over the course of years, I noticed that many of my clients had this recurring problem of feeling worthless. Simply telling them that they had worth rarely worked. I couldn’t reassure them that they were great or showing them they had value according to their peers did not help. They didn’t believe it when anybody told them. I took several workshops on the work of Brené Brown on shame and belonging and kept observing similar problems within my clients. There was a belief that was somehow built into who they thought they were. It was very frustrating until one day someone responded well when I shared this popular quote.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
(Ambiguous source) It’s often attributed to Albert Einstein, but there’s intense disagreement about that. See the sources section, below, if you want to find out more.
This fish climbing a tree idea really stuck in their head. It felt right. It was a story. It’s a popular internet meme. Einstein apparently didn’t say it, but few people care. Maybe not everyone is a genius, but they all have something special and cool about them if you try to look. So, maybe a fish can learn to climb a tree if it tries harder. Maybe it can be more successful if it just swims. I hope to help you think about the possibility of figuring out what you can accept as fact and what you can change. So, I kept using it in varying ways and started the seed of a story. This is that story.
What follows is an adventure in exploring yourself and what you believe a little more deeply. It can be for parents, educators, psychotherapists of all types, and even some kids who really want to figure this stuff out. I wish I’d known this stuff when I was younger.
I will explore more questions on:
⦁ Feeling worthless
⦁ Social Pressure and Expectations
⦁ Shame and Feeling Unworthy
⦁ Self-Criticism and Critical Thinking
⦁ Doing the Same Thing Harder or Doing Something Differently
⦁ Friendship
⦁ Accepting Your Body
⦁ Accepting Hidden Talents
⦁ Who We Think We Are and How it Affects Us
⦁ Growing Up in a Small Town (or Tidepool)
⦁ Belief and Religion
⦁ Otto and the Journey into the Unknown
1: The Repeating Problem: Feeling Worthless
This book was written to solve a problem. I’m a psychotherapist. That means lots of people come to me to help them figure out how to feel better and do better in their relationships. Lots of people have been having the same kind of problem. They don’t really like themselves for a variety of reasons. Many of those reasons have to do with how they don’t fit into their society or culture. Since I was a child, good people have tried to convince others to be nicer. It works to an extent. But it turns out if we don’t believe we are worth it, those nice words kind of bounce off. It’s like we have a little filter that keeps nice words out if we don’t believe them.
This problem goes deeply into strong beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of. Our world as we experience it is shaped by our beliefs. Those kinds of beliefs about worth come from our culture and childhood experiences. As I was taking a class about a book called “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brené Brown. She is a researcher about many things including shame and feeling like you have worth. She wrote that accepting your imperfections is one of the keys to feeling like you are worth love and belonging.
Little by little, pieces of a story started coming together. And then this pandemic started happening and I had some free time on my hands. But why a story? Stories are great ways to make ideas stick. When I tell short stories to illustrate a point, my clients remember them better than when I just tell them about a cool idea. My kids are the same way. Ok, lots of kids are the same way.
You might be asking yourself, “why is this book organized like this?” It's about story. Stories help us encode things into memory because they have a "why" built right in. It’s the same reason why you might remember the basic story of “The Three Little Pigs” more than what you had for breakfast 334 days ago.
A lot of books for helping people (self-help books) have some stories sprinkled in to make a point. I wanted to tell a story that made a bigger point about accepting yourself by showing how absurd it was that a crab could think he's a fish. Personally, and as a therapist, I've seen so many examples of this thing happen that I wanted to show it rather than tell it.
Tools For Learning:
In asking questions like the ones below, sometimes the answers can feel really sensitive. Take your time. Notice when your body gets tense or feels tingly or suddenly warm. That’s completely normal and a sign that something important might come to the surface. That means something you didn’t even know about might feel suddenly very important. A very smart client of mine suggested that it was like bringing up sunken cargo from ships. You might not even know there is anything there until you look.
Also, thoughts can make emotions come up. If you spend time noticing what your thoughts are doing, you’ll find out that emotions last only 90 seconds. But if you think another thought, you might have another emotion you like or don’t like. I used to get lost in my emotions and was worried they would take hours and hours. Jill Bolte Taylor calls this “The 90 Second Rule.” Don’t take my word for it (or hers). You can test it yourself with a stopwatch. Most smartphones have one or you can just count it out to yourself.
Strong emotions will pass. Find an adult who has earned your trust. Most parents are great. Sometimes they are not. Most of the time, everybody is doing the best that they can. Talking about things with someone who is kind and listens well can help. Some people will tell you that you are bad or worthless. What if you get to decide to agree or disagree with them?
Emotions are sneaky. They can come up without warning and be great or uncomfortable. If you try to feel them on purpose, you are ready and you can practice some skills. Try feeling something slightly uncomfortable and then trying not to think about it. Imagine you are leaning into the feeling and then leaning away. Try to feel it a tiny bit and then try to put it away.
If it is still too much, a psychotherapist (or family therapist, rabbi, pastor, psychiatrist, psychologist, or coach might be some other choices.) Remember, not everyone is perfect and they might judge you for being a bad person and hurt your feelings even when they are trying to help you. Sometimes we do bad things or hurt others. It all gets complicated. It really helps to try to be responsible for what you do and how you help or hurt others.
If you are a kid reading this by yourself: feel free to read and ask yourself these questions. You might find it rewarding to write down your answers. If you feel you are not in a community where it is safe to explore controversial topics, know that you are not alone.
If you are a teacher, parent, or discussion group leader: pick a topic that is relevant to your group and ask some of these questions. Be sure to listen before you make yourself understood. The key skill is listening to understand instead of listening to reply. Modeling this behavior teaches this to the kids.
Discussion Questions:
⦁ What stories do you like?
⦁ Which ones have made you think about things differently?
⦁ Finding Nemo and Finding Dory were inspirations for this story. If you have seen either or both of those movies, what things are similar?
⦁ “The Ugly Duckling” is a classic story about a duck discovering that it is a swan. How is this story similar or different?
⦁ What ideas do you like or dislike about this story about Edwin?
(end of free sample of discussion section)
Buy the full book at: https://tinyurl.com/NotFishyEnough
