A “favorite of mine,” I mean, because, after all, blogs
are all about the blogger.
I first heard this one told at some kind of meeting, or seminar, by a professional story-teller. I don’t recall just where, or when. It’s a good one. It’s got a few strong
messages in it, and it delivers a real kick at the end. I hope that somebody
out there enjoys it.
The Clever Little Fisherman
Once upon a time, there was a very nice fishing village
that was close to some good places to catch fish. Many fine fishermen lived
there, and most of them were big men with strong hands and hired men to help
them with their large boats. There was, however, one fisherman who was a bit on
the small side. He had his own boat, and he worked it alone, and the boat was a
bit on the small side, too. The little fisherman was clever, though, and he did
a good job of catching fish. The other fishermen said that he was just lucky,
but really, he caught a lot of fish because he was full of good ideas. He made
a living, and he was happy.
One day, the little fisherman sailed out and went to the
best place to catch fish. There were already a few other boats there, and after
a while he noticed that no one was catching any fish. He decided to try another
popular fishing spot, and he set off in that direction. There, he was the only fishing
boat that he could see, but still there were no fish. He worked at it for a
while, but his net was always empty. By
now, the day was half gone, and he had not caught any fish at all. It happened
sometimes. None of them knew everything that there was to know about fish. Sometimes
there were just no fish where you expected them to be.
The little fisherman pulled in his nets and gear, and he
sat down to think about some way to save the day’s work. He remembered a place
where he had caught some fish one time, a place where he had never seen another
fishing boat. “It’s worth a chance,” he said, “maybe I’ll get lucky.” At the
new place, sure enough, there were no other boats. The little fisherman stood
in his boat with his hands on his hips, and he looked at the sea, and the sun,
and the birds, and he decided on a good spot to cast his net.
He cast his net as far as he could, and he slowly pulled
it back towards his boat. It felt very light, and sure enough, when he got it
back to the boat, it was empty. Undiscouraged, he cast his net again. As he was
pulling it back, he could feel some weight in the net. Okay! He thought, that’s
better! At last I’ve caught a fish! But when the net reached the ship, all that
he could find in it was one old boot. He said a silent prayer, and threw the
boot back into the sea. He was still determined to catch fish, so he cast his
net again in the same spot. This time, he could again feel something in the
net. “Probably the other boot,” he said. But no, it wasn’t a boot. It wasn’t a
fish, either.
It was a lamp. It was an oil lamp of a very old design.
It was very fancy, and he began to wonder if it was worth some money, maybe a
lot of money. Maybe it wasn’t a wasted day at all! The other fishermen would
laugh at that. None of them caught any fish today, or almost no fish, but the
clever little fisherman pulled in a lamp that was worth more than fish! He was
trying to figure out what the lamp was made of, and he wanted to see more of
the design on the sides, so he took the sleeve of his shirt and rubbed the side
of the lamp as hard as he could. Something happened immediately.
The stopper in the neck fell out, and the lamp began to vibrate,
and it made a small humming sound, and from the neck there came a growing cloud
of gray smoke that looked very heavy. And then, in the smoke, there appeared a
genie, dressed in clothes of a style that no one had seen anywhere in the world
for a very, very long time. The genie was very big.
“At last!” said the genie, who seemed to be stretching a
little bit, rolling his shoulders gently, with his eyes closed. Then the genie
opened his eyes and looked straight at the fisherman. He seemed neither happy,
nor sad. The genie was not at all excited, and he certainly was not afraid. The
fisherman was trying to decide if the genie was angry, but while he was
wondering what to do, the genie spoke to him.
“When I was first imprisoned in this lamp, I thought
little of it. I was confident that I could use my strength and my powers to escape.
But alas, I could not.
“At first, I believed that someone would find the lamp
and free me before too long, and I began to wait as comfortably as I could. I
thought, when someone frees me from this lamp, I will be grateful. I will grant
them three wishes and send them on their way. But no one came.
“As time when on, and after hundreds of years had passed,
I reasoned that someday, and that day must come, someone will find the lamp and
free me from this prison. I had grown beyond emotions such as gratitude by that
time, so I decided that the wishes were out of the question. I would simply
allow them to go on their way.
“But no one came, and the years became thousands, and in
that time my heart became the hardest stone in the world. My fury became the
coldest anger in the world. I have lived with only one thought. I cannot escape,
but I cannot die, so in the fullness of time it only stands to reason that
someone will eventually free me from this lamp. When that happens, I will seize
that person in my hands and tear them apart with my teeth.”
The little fisherman, as you can imagine, had been
listening to this story with growing concern. He knew that he needed a clever
idea, and he needed it quickly. He thought of something that was worth giving a
try.
“Oh, mighty genie! You are so powerful! I’ll bet there’s
almost nothing that you can’t do!”
“I am mightier than you know! There’s nothing that I
cannot do!”
“Well, honestly, you are so big, and you look so solid, I
can’t imagine that you are strong enough to fit yourself into such a small
lamp.”
“That’s nothing!” said the genie. “Here, I’ll show you.”
At that, the genie turned back into the cloud of heavy
smoke and disappeared back into the neck of the lamp. The clever little
fisherman snatched up the stopper and put it in place as firmly as he could.
The fisherman placed the lamp in the bottom of the boat,
being careful to hold in with his fingertips. No rubbing! Please! He sat down
and looked around at the sky and the sea, to make sure that it was once again
the calm, quiet day that he remembered from a few minutes previously. All
appeared well, and to make sure that it stayed that way, the fisherman picked
up the lamp, again with his fingertips, and carefully dropped it over the side
of the boat.
Sailing back to the village, the fisherman knew that he
would never again go fishing in that spot. He wondered if he should warn the
other men about that spot, but he quickly realized that most of the men wouldn’t
believe him, and some of the more foolish men might want to go and start
looking for the lamp. Better to remain silent about the entire thing. “How terrible!”
he thought. “The cleverest thing that I’ve ever done, by far, and I can’t even
tell my friends!”
The Moral
There are a few. First of all, don’t give up when things
are not coming easy. The fisherman looks for better spots to fish, and he casts
his net repeatedly to try to catch fish.
I suppose there’s a moral in the genie’s behavior. If the
genie had been more reasonable, and treated the fisherman with magnanimity, the
genie could have returned to his perfect life as the powerful being that he
was, and as free as a bird, too. By being meanspirited and temperamental, he
forced the fisherman’s hand and ended up back in the lamp.
I think that there’s another lesson here. I don’t know
how Bruno Bettleheim would handle this one, but I see it this way. Don’t piss
people off in the first place, and if you do, cease and desist as soon as
possible, and apologize if that will help. If you leave people in a state of
anger for too long, it only hardens their hearts. This unfortunate genie was
prepared to be reasonable for quite a long time. The story does not provide any
of the details surrounding his incarceration, so we don’t know much about his
transgressions or his culpability. We are told in detail, however, how his
anger grew over time, beginning as hardly any anger at all and finally becoming
a murderous rage at the world. If you will think about it for only a moment,
you will probably think of examples of this phenomenon that you have witnessed
in your own lives.
I know that I can easily find examples from my own life
and the lives of others that have been known to me. And you, at least you must
remember this kind of thing happening in soap-operas. The soap-opera is the
longest form of drama known to man, hundreds of hours per year and going on for
decades. There’s plenty of time for the hardening of hearts. It happens in real
life too, though, and probably it happens to all of us, whichever side of the
thing we are on.
Problems and disagreements begin, and for the first year,
let’s say, all it would take to solve them would be for somebody to say, come
on, I’m sorry, this is silly, we’re friends for Christ’s sake! All is forgiven.
Add another year, and it all gets more difficult. Add a few years, and someone
is going to have to come up with a more abject apology to straighten out the
mess. Go five years or more, it’s a done deal. One party’s heart will have
become “the hardest stone in the world” by that time.
Take the lesson, dear readers. If you have a disagreement
with a loved one, get over it and apologize, whether you think that you were
right or wrong or whatever. Just do it. It’s a loved one. Eat a little crow,
you’ll get over it. If you have a problem with anyone at all, friend, neighbor,
relative, co-worker, anyone, you’ll feel better if you can make it all go away
while such a thing is possible. At some point it becomes a done-deal and you’re
stuck with the result forever.
In the words of the immortal Rodney King: why can’t we
all just get along?
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