There were three young adults. One was named Goliath. He was powerful. His
muscles were tight and strong. He never
had to persuade anyone to do anything because everyone was always eager to
please him anyway. When he daydreamed,
he daydreamed about conferences with heads of state. Work-out enthusiasts, biker gangs, and car
aficionados and military folks everywhere revered Goliath. Goliath was the sort of person who inspired
tremendous courage and others would willingly follow him into battle. The second was named Solomon. He understood what everyone really wanted out
of life. He could sell anything because
he knew what everyone wanted to hear. He
could negotiate his way out of any situation.
Men and women alike loved knowing he was around because he knew so much. His interests were so varied, and he
understood human nature so well that he was incredibly witty, humorous, with
great insights about agriculture, vitamins, spices. He understood the world of finance, and could
speak with great sophistication on any subject.
Anyone who spoke with him felt that he truly did understand what it was
like to be them. And he did. His is the single most downloaded TED talk
ever given. The third was named
Jane. She loved a little kid named
Ty. She was his foster mother for the
early part of his life. And though this
was just a portion of his life, it was her life’s work. She knew exactly how much sugar he liked in
his tea. She woke him up. She put him to sleep. She told him stories in the evening when the
sunlight was low with shadowpuppets on the wall. Sometimes Ty would insult her because it was
clear he had the power to hurt her. And
it did hurt her. Others thought she was
too emotional. Others thought she was
frivolous. Taking walks with her took forever because she would notice things
like butterflies. She laughed a lot. Some thought she wasn’t serious enough.
Now there was a fairy who lived in Jane’s neighborhood
who would occasionally help Jane out with little chores and cooking. One day another fairy with an official
looking uniform appeared. “I’ve come
from the council”, he said. “We have
looked into the heart of what is to come, and it seems Ty must prepare to
become a great leader of humanity.” But
the official fairy was very unimpressed with Jane, who seemed very weak,
clingy, and vulnerable. So he went to
work. Jane’s fairy defended her, but
he wouldn’t listen.
As Ty grew up, he enlisted in the military. The commander of his unit was Goliath. Ty quickly became Goliath’s star pupil. But even as he became more powerful,
confident, and skilled in getting his way, he only made others afraid. They were in awe of him, but they didn’t love
him. Like most small things around him,
Jane vanished in his eyes. He never
came by. When he did see her, he always
hurt her feelings somehow. The official fairy
was disappointed. Power had seemed to
alienate Ty from people.
The fairy saw to it that Ty ended up as a PhD candidate
under Solomon where Solomon did some adjunct professorial work. This led to a spot on the board of Solomon’s
media company which oversaw cultural journals, book reviews, TV network, and a
global conference for technological and financial elites. Ty became Solomon’s star pupil. He was constantly acknowledged in a wide
variety of books, and his schedule became filled with all sorts of cocktail
parties. But even as he became very
knowledgeable about influence, success, management, and more, he was more and
more motivated by predicting trends and staying current, discovering untapped
talent, that even though he thought he was selfless, the truth was all too
apparent to the fairy from his metrics that Ty wasn’t so much of a leader as a
star with countless planets revolving around him. Jane’s letters that she was praying for
him were answered with embarrassed, sophisticated, condescension which Ty took
for being sweet.
When Jane died, her family asked Ty to make contributions
to her obituary. As he took some time
one morning to try to organize some words around Jane’s life, he felt
strangely moved that he could not capture Jane’s life in words. Her life was so simple and so dedicated to
him that it came across small in such a way that embarrassed him, for how she
had dedicated herself to him. For vast
periods of stillness, he simply held her before his eyes. He began to wonder if she were not the most
loving person he had ever met. What
truly began to move him was that he could
see this in her when he had never seen it before. He began to wonder for the first time in his
life whether he might be a good person because he could see this in her. As his mind moved through thoughts like
these, he felt as though he were being given what he most deeply longed for in
that very moment.
Words cannot describe what Ty went on to do. But the fairy, when he reclined with his
fairy beverage at the end of the day, he would think about this moment, when
Jane’s life of selfless love filled his being. He didn’t think about the power that Ty went
on to wield with such dignity and valor.
He didn’t think about the knowledge which Ty held with such
kindness. He thought about that one
moment when Ty was so filled with wonder at Jane’s love for him that all he
had ever done or ever hoped to do seemed
as nothing to him compared with even one single tear that had fallen from
Jane’s cheek on his account.
No comments:
Post a Comment