Two protagonists:
-Walking down the street, an old grimy man carrying two garbage bags.
-A young grimy man with two garbage bags next to him sitting on the pile of rubble crying his heart out.
The old man comes level to the young man and asks him "What's the matter, why are you crying so?"
The young man explains through his tears that the pile of rubble beneath him is all that is left of his home and that, now, of all that he possessed, only the contents of the two garbage bags next to him remain.
The earthquake had made a pauper of him.
The old man pulls a bottle of aguardiente from one of his two bags offers the young man a drink. The old-timer speaks kind comforting words to him all the while smiling gently like a saint, eventually, the young man feels his grief abate somewhat.
The young man is full of wonder at the old man's calm and serene demeanor. The old man seeing that his junior feels a bit better, bids him good day and starts to walk away...
The young man asks the elder before he is out of earshot,
"How can you be so calm, are you not like me? Aren’t your worldly possessions limited to the contents of your two garbage bags?"
To which the elder turns around and grins brightly as he answers: "I 'm not like you; this is all I've ever had..." And with that the old bum walks away cackling.
Wonderful story! Sometimes we are burdened by our own possessions. So much to the extent that THEY own US. That old man is wise.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the story, Aubrie.
ReplyDeleteYours is certainly a positive way of interpreting it.
It's fascinating reading how differently people interpret the same things.
It's like a scrying ball into peoples' personae.
Hi Alesa, I enjoyed this story. Thank you very much for your help re Amazon books. I think they must make their money on the postage they charge. Even with that it still makes them cheap books compared with the price of books here. So I think I will go ahead and buy them. Thanks again :o) xx and thanks for your support on my A-Z challenge.
ReplyDeleteps I googled Prof Lenski and read about ecoli and was going to ask what his connection to unicorns were and then I found this...
ReplyDelete"In other words, it’s not that we claim to have glimpsed “a unicorn in the garden” – we have a whole population of them living in my lab! And lest you accuse me further of fraud, I do not literally mean that we have unicorns in the lab. Rather, I am making a literary allusion."
haha brilliant!!!
Hey, you're quite welcome on both counts.
ReplyDeleteI know what it's like... I don't even live in an English speaking country so getting books online is often my best option, otherwise I have to buy them imported books from specialty English language stores which, for example, have priced a recent paperback at 45€... O_o
Cheers.
I guess I'll put up a link to it the entire Lenski affair in my treasure chest blog.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and so poignant. Appropriate for mentioning one of my favorite quotes; "Everything is relative".;)
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely weekend,
xo
Aloha Zuzana! Glad to hear you enjoyed the piece. Yes, I dig that quote too! I used to use it excessively... Now I just think it quietly in the back of my mind. ; j
ReplyDeleteMy brother lives by the rule that if his stuff can't fit in his car then he has too much. Very peaceful way to go, but I am not there yet. I still like "stuff".
ReplyDeleteLoL, I guess he doesn't play the piano... Thanks for dropping by.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between worldly possessions and stuff. There's the question of usefulness, of necessity. Part of the issue methinks is the appreciation of what one has...
If I had a kindle or an iPad I could fit all my possessions into two garbage bags, easily. Good story.
ReplyDeleteHello Eryl.
ReplyDeleteAnd a scanner... And several years, to scan a lifetime's worth of books? And by the time you were done scanning your books, the proprietary formats of the kindle and the ipad will no longer be supported.
I say that but I've done most of my reading on my PDA for the past 5 years so I know what you mean.
A wise tale. Possessions fail to have significance if one has not had the luxury to own much. Different from Scarlett's vow to rebuild Tara in Gone With the Wind".
ReplyDeleteI don't remember gone with the wind well... Only saw it once, and read neither the original nor the sequel. Did she vow to do whatever it took to rebuild the plantation?
ReplyDelete