2012-08-15, 08:12 PM (This post was last modified: 2012-08-17, 02:20 PM by Chew.)
-Not my stories- (I only do the translations)
The Chained Elephant
When I was a little boy I loved the circus, and what I loved the most about the circus were the elephants.
Shortly after, I knew most people liked the elephants as much as I did.
During the feature, the huge animal made deployment of his weight, height and colossal strenght... but after his act and after a while before returning to the scenario, the elephant was tied only by a chain that held one of his legs to a little stake driven into the ground.
Nonetheless, the stake was only a little piece of wood only nailed to a few inches into the ground. And even if the chain was big enough, it seems obvious to me that the elephant could just tear apart the stake and run away.
The mystery is evident:
Why does he stay there?
Why doesn't he run?
When I was five or six years old I still trust in old men wisedom.
Then I asked to a teacher, to a father or even an uncle about the mystery of the elephant. Some of them explained me that the elephant doesn't escape because he's tamed.
Then I asked the obvious question...
If it is tamed, why does it need the chain?
I don't remember getting a logical answer.
With time I forgot about the elephant and the stake, and I only remembered about it when I stumble with other people that asked themselves the same question.
A few years ago, with some luck, I met this wise enough person to found the answer about it:
"The circus elephant doesn't escape, because he has been bound to a stake since he was very small."
I closed my eyes and imagined the newly born elephant tied to the stake.
I'm sure in that very moment the poor little elephant pulled, pushed and sweat trying to get off the the stake. And even with his all efforts he couldn't make it.
I swear he fell asleep exhausted and in the next morning he tried again, and so on...
Until one, a terrible day for his life, the animal accepted his impotence and resign to his destiny.
This huge and powerful elephant we see at the circus becaus he thinks - poor of him- that he can't.
He has in his memory his impotence, his impotence that he felt on that day when he born.
And the worst of all he has never questioned that memory again.
He never ... never... tried to test his strength ever again...
We all go wandering around the world, tied to hundreds of stakes, and they take away our freedom...
conditioned to a memory that "I couldn't, I can't and I will never can't"
The only way for you to know, is to try again and this time putting all your heart on it.
-Jorge Bucay
Disclaimer:
It would be awesome if anyone can put some feedback on this, mainly on grammar.
There was this man who seeked the truth.
Many wisemen told him that the truth was a bright light that could shine into the deeps of ignorance.
The man looked for this light, and when he didn't find it he just todl to himself: "This light doesn't exist".
It was almost midnight, when this man went to the well in his backyard to get some water, and the bottom of his well he saw the bright of a huge circle.
"It's the truth" - he thought - "it exist and I have it right here in my house".
Proud of himself, he went to the streets yelling that he had the truth brighting in the deep of his well. Many made fun of him, and he just treated them with contempt.
They are just like I was -he thought-,
They don't believe in the truth because they haven't found it.
Other didn't even believe in him.
Skeptics - he said-.
Only a few listened to him, and some of them told him that they had the truth in their well too.
This ones slightly irritated him.
At first instance he thought they were naives that thought they had the truth but they couldn't have it for sure; nonetheless after checking in the houses of some of his friends, he realized they had the same light and they were at least as brightest as his.
There are many truths -he sentenced-. Each one has its own bright and they all radiate their own bright.
One night, visiting his well just to let the truth illuminate his face, he looked down the well and he couldn't find that bright circle.
He couldn't understand why, but the wind was blowing so hard that night taht the agitated water couldn't reflect the moonlight and even so the moon was brighting radiant up in the sky.
He thought the truth abandoned him and he felt sad and hopeless.
But then he look right up in the sky with his tearful eyes... and he saw it.
Then he understood. The light in his well didn't came from the inside. His light and all the other lights came from above, in the firmament, brighting for each well with the same intensity.
Reflects that illuminate.
-This is how we evolve our relationship with the truth.
We start by believeing it doesn't exist.
Then before or after we discover a bit of it and we fall in love with our discover. We feel superiors and gifted, carriers of the only truth, unique and unquestionable.
With the time we are forced to accept there are others that had their truth; and after attempting to disqualifying them without succes, we include them in our list of the "chosen".
Finally, we realize that the truth isn't something you can't posses. We realize it's something that you can access only to its warm reflect and this isn't even permanent.
Then we found the place of humbleness between those who know that don't know and they are willing to learn-
[Spoiler= The clock stopped at 7 o'clock]
There's a beatiful clock hanging in one of my walls of my room and it doesn't work anymore.
Its hands stopped since always, shows the exact same time: 7 o'clock... Almost all the time, the clock is just a useless souvenir on my empty wall.
Nonetheless, there's two moments during the day, two shooting instants in which that old clocks seems to rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
When all the other clocks in the city, with their crazy gaits marks the 7 o'clock and all of the sudden all the coo-coo's and gongs start to ring all over the city, my old clock in my room seems to get life again.
Two times per day, one in the day and one in the day, that old clock feels in complete harmony with the rest of the universe.
If someone looked at that clock in those very moments, they would say it works perfectly...
But past that instant, when all the other clocks have shut and all the hands start their monotone paths, my old clock loses its way and stick loyal to that single time.
And I love that clock, and whenever I talk about it, I love it more, because each time I feel more alike to it - I'm stuck in the time too, I feel inmobile and attached, somehow I'm a useless decoration on a empty wall.
But I have some shooting moments too, in which, mysteriously, my time comes.
During those times, I feel alive. Everything is clear and the worlds transforms into something wonderful.
I can create, dream, fly, say and feel more things in those moments than any other. This harmonicals conjuctions just appears over and over again, as an inexorable secuence.
The first time I felt it, I tried to stick in that instant believe I could make it last forever. But it wasn't that way. As my loyal clock, I lost the time of others too.
Past these times, the other clocks that nest in other people, continue their work and I come back to my static death routine, my job, my coffe talks and my bored way I use to call life.
But I know life is another thing... I know that life, life truly is the sum of all those moments, although short, they allow us to feel in sintony with the rest of the universe.
Almost all the world, poor of them, think they live.
There are only moments of plenitude and those who don't know and insist on making them last forever, will remain condemned to a gray world, and a tedious wandering of ordinariness.
This is why I love you, old clock, because you and me... are the same thing.
What are these short pieces supposed to be? Are they supposed to be deep? I mean, I'm reading it and I can't even get into it because the hook is so weak. You/he/whatever put no detail, no pull, you just say the title and start off with "There was, there is, this is about". If he wants my feedback, he'd start it off better where the person understands the story without being told at the very first sentence
[MENTION=4235]KhainiWest[/MENTION];
Just short stories I have read through some books. I just feel like sharing some of them and in the way practice my english (this is where I want some feedback).
Chew Wrote:@KhainiWest;
Just short stories I have read through some books. I just feel like sharing some of them and in the way practice my english (this is where I want some feedback).
Oh, well that could be written as "Sharing some of them to practice my english" or "Sharing some of them and in a way to practice my english".
