Monday, February 03, 2014

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? A Look Back

by Dick Mac

Chicken crossing road
About ten or fifteen years ago, a list circulated of answers to the question "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

The first list below is the list that circulated.

The second list were the additions I made at that time, and began to appear on the list as it circulated around the globe.

Do you have some to add?

The original list as I first received it:

Machiavelli:
The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why?  The ends of crossing the road justify whatever motive there was.

Thomas de Torquemada:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Timothy Leary:
Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Carl Jung:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and, therefore, synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

John Locke:
Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.

Albert Camus:
It doesn't matter; the chicken’s actions have no meaning except to him.

The Bible:
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Fox Mulder:
It was a government conspiracy.

Freud:
The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Darwin:
Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

Darwin #2:
It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Richard M. Nixon:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

The Pope:
That is only for God to know.

Louis Farrakhan:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the “black man” in order to trample him and keep him down.

Martin Luther King, Jr.:
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Immanuel Kant:
The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.

Grandpa:
In my day, we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

M.C.Escher:
That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.

George Orwell:
Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.

Colonel Sanders:
I missed one?

Plato:
For the greater good.

Aristotle:
To actualize its potential.

Karl Marx:
It was a historical inevitability.

Nietzsche:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

B.F. Skinner:
Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.

Jean-Paul Sartre:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Albert Einstein:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Pyrrho the Skeptic:
What road?

The Sphinx:
You tell me.

Buddha:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Emily Dickinson:
Because it could not stop for death.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Ernest Hemingway:
To die. In the rain.

Saddam Hussein:
It is the Mother of all Chickens.

Joseph Stalin:
I don’t care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelet.

Dr. Seuss:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes the chicken crossed the road,
but why it crossed, I've not been told!

O.J. Simpson:
It didn’t.  I was playing golf with it at the time.

Human Resources/Training Perspective:
The chicken had a vision. The chicken was proficient in the core competencies necessary to implement the plan and make the vision reality.

Pat Buchanan:
To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.

Oliver Stone:
The question is not “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but is rather “Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?”

Jerry Seinfeld:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to  ask, “What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?”

Dirk Gently (Holistic Detective):
I’m not exactly sure why, but right now I've got a horse in my bathroom.

Bill Gates:
I have just released the new Chicken 2000, which will both cross roads AND balance your checkbook, though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.

The items I added those many years ago:

e.e. cummings:
to
g   e    t
t
o
the other    s    i     d    e

Albert Einstein (#2):
The chicken is insane!  For all of time the chicken crosses the road over and over again, expecting different results.

Freud (#2):
Sometimes a chicken crossing the road is just a chicken crossing the road.

John Lennon:
The fookin chicken crossed the bloody road to get away from his oppressor, man.

Andy Warhol:
In the future, everyone will cross the road for fifteen minutes.

A 12-Step Perspective:
Having admitted that it was on the wrong side of the street, the chicken came to believe that a Power greater than itself could, and would, if sought, assist it in crossing the road.  The chicken made a decision to cross the road.  Before proceeding too wantonly, the chicken examined its past, its motives, its fears; admitted these to itself, God, and another chicken.  Became entirely willing to cross the road.  Asked God to remove all obstacles in the road.  Made a list of all who were harmed in the chicken’s self-seeking efforts to stay on the wrong side of the street, and became willing to make right all such relationships.  Made all the amends necessary to relieve itself of all obstacles between it and crossing the road.  While crossing, continued to examine its motives and actions and corrected them immediately.  Sought, through prayer and meditation, a constant and rewarding contact with the God of its understanding.  Having successfully crossed the road, the chicken practiced these new-found principles in all areas of its life, and dedicated all its efforts to helping other chickens get on the right side of the street.

Do you have some to add?

Your Name:
Your answer.