"Monkey Business" is a playful yet sharp critique of the absurdities we call modern life, where meaning slips through our fingers as quickly as the next social media trend. At the heart of this colorful chaos is a monkey—a fitting mascot for human ambition—swinging through a world where "US vs dollar" and "per capita" have somehow become sacred truths.

The painting's vibrant disarray reflects society's love affair with arbitrary metrics and the endless race toward hollow goals. Scrawled phrases like "ugliness in success" and "beauty in struggle" laugh at the contradictions we live every day, while a lone figure balances precariously, stuck between the delusion of progress and the comfort of standing still. It's a perfect metaphor for the human condition: desperately trying to jump ahead while secretly longing for a moment of stillness—maybe with a banana.

Amid the chaos, we are asked to consider what it means to be doglike. The figure of a simple, childlike dog invites us into a philosophy of pure being: moving through life without questioning every step, without analyzing or overthinking, but simply existing with purpose and presence. To be doglike is to embrace the moment as it is, without the existential dread of "what's next" or "is this enough?" It's a reminder to be grounded, to find joy in the small, the simple, the immediate—whether it's chasing a stick or lying in the grass. In contrast to the overcomplicated "monkey business" of human life, the doglike spirit teaches us that sometimes, we need to stop striving and just be.

Amidst the visual cacophony, snippets of text—like "joy of missing out" and the repeated "No"—invite us to question our frantic participation in the world's chaos. But quitting? That's not an option, especially when we've got absurd metrics to chase. Who wouldn't want to be a tree, or whatever that ambiguous alternative might be? We're promised growth, but growth into what? No one knows, and that's the beauty of it.

"Monkey Business" doesn't pretend to have answers. It's a satire on our obsession with measuring worth through meaningless numbers, gleefully mocking the systems we impose on ourselves. In the end, this chaotic piece suggests that life is a mad, disjointed game, and perhaps we're the punchline. After all, if even the monkeys can't figure it out, why should we?