The Situation Symbol
Today, my friend M asked me to tell her a story. Just like that. Sitting under the afternoon sun, lazy and contemplative, we were just killing time. I know it seems difficult to be both lazy and contemplative at the same time. But when the body relaxes, the mind awakens.
The words poured out of my mouth. I didn't know what I was going to say, but I started impromptu. This is what I said:
"There was once a little girl, who had a pretty normal height for her age. As she started growing up, she realised that everyone else was growing taller than her, while her height had stopped somewhere.
Now she started looking up to see everyone very far away from her eyes. If she looked down, she saw the floor very easily. She started feeling as if she was becoming invisible. Everyone looked down upon her, as if she lacked something that they had.
After a while, the girl couldn't take this anymore. She had cried enough, because what she saw when she looked up was more than what she saw when she looked down.
She decided to climb a huge tree to know how it felt to be on the top for a change. She reached a place, from where she looked at the world below. Everything was clear, in perspective, larger, in detail. She felt happy. This is what she had wanted, to feel in control of what she saw.
Then by mistake, she happened to look up.
She saw the endless sky, much bigger than the tree or the world could be. She realised the best place to be in life was always in between, the middle of everything, and not the extreme. That way you saw what you could achieve, and what you couldn't, both."
M stopped me.
"Is that the moral of the story? Are you trying to tell something to me?"
"No," I said, "I'm trying to tell something to myself."
She smiled at me. I smiled back.
Today, my friend M asked me to tell her a story. Just like that. Sitting under the afternoon sun, lazy and contemplative, we were just killing time. I know it seems difficult to be both lazy and contemplative at the same time. But when the body relaxes, the mind awakens.
The words poured out of my mouth. I didn't know what I was going to say, but I started impromptu. This is what I said:
"There was once a little girl, who had a pretty normal height for her age. As she started growing up, she realised that everyone else was growing taller than her, while her height had stopped somewhere.
Now she started looking up to see everyone very far away from her eyes. If she looked down, she saw the floor very easily. She started feeling as if she was becoming invisible. Everyone looked down upon her, as if she lacked something that they had.
After a while, the girl couldn't take this anymore. She had cried enough, because what she saw when she looked up was more than what she saw when she looked down.
She decided to climb a huge tree to know how it felt to be on the top for a change. She reached a place, from where she looked at the world below. Everything was clear, in perspective, larger, in detail. She felt happy. This is what she had wanted, to feel in control of what she saw.
Then by mistake, she happened to look up.
She saw the endless sky, much bigger than the tree or the world could be. She realised the best place to be in life was always in between, the middle of everything, and not the extreme. That way you saw what you could achieve, and what you couldn't, both."
M stopped me.
"Is that the moral of the story? Are you trying to tell something to me?"
"No," I said, "I'm trying to tell something to myself."
She smiled at me. I smiled back.
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