Knowledge and Half-Knowledge
Four frogs sat upon a log that lay floating on the edge of a river.
Suddenly the log was caught by the current and swept slowly down the stream.
The frogs were delighted and absorbed, for never before had they sailed.
At length the first frog spoke, and said, "This is indeed a most marvellous log. It moves as if alive. No such log was ever known before."
Then the second frog spoke, and said, "Nay, my friend, the log is like other logs, and does not move. It is the river that is walking to the sea, and carries us and the log with it."
And the third frog spoke, and said, "It is neither the log nor the river that moves. The moving is in our thinking. For without thought nothing moves."
And the three frogs began to wrangle about what was really moving. The quarrel grew hotter and louder, but they could not agree.
Then they turned to the fourth frog, who up to this time had been listening attentively but holding his peace, and they asked his opinion.
And the fourth frog said, "Each of you is right, and none of you is wrong. The moving is in the log and the water and our thinking also."
And the three frogs became very angry, for none of them was willing to admit that his was not the whole truth, and that the other two were not wholly wrong.
Then a strange thing happened. The three frogs got together and pushed the fourth frog off the log into the river.
Poets
Four poets were sitting around a bowl of punch that stood on a table.
Said the first poet, "Methinks I see with my third eye the fragrance of this wine hovering in space like a cloud of birds in an enchanted forest."
The second poet raised his head and said, "With my inner ear I can hear those mist-birds singing. And the melody holds my heart as the white rose imprisons the bee within her petals."
The third poet closed his eyes and stretched his arm upwards, and said, "I touch them with my hand. I feel their wings, like the breath of a sleeping fairy, brushing against my fingers."
Then the fourth poet rose and lifted up the bowl, and he said, "Alas, friends! I am too dull of sight and of hearing and of touch. I cannot see the fragrance of this wine, nor hear its song, nor feel the beating of its wings. I perceive but the wine itself. Now therefore must I drink it, that it may sharpen my senses and raise me to your blissful heights."
And putting the bowl to his lips, he drank the punch to the very last drop.
The three poets, with their mouths open, looked at him aghast, and there was a thirsty yet unlyrical hatred in their eyes.
My father-in-law, Christiano Oiticica
by
Paulo Coelho
Shortly before he died, my father-in-law gathered the family together and announced:
“I know that death is just a passage, and I want to be able to make this passage without any sadness. To put your minds at rest, I shall send you a sign that it was worthwhile helping others in this life.” He asked to be cremated and for his ashes to be thrown into the ocean at Arpoador beach in Ipanema while a tape played his favorite pieces of music.
He died two days later. A friend arranged for his cremation in São Paulo and when we returned to Rio we all went to Arpoador beach with the radio, the tapes and the package with the little urn containing his ashes. Standing facing the sea, we discovered that the lid of the urn was closed with screw-nails. We tried to open it, but to no avail.
There was nobody around, just a beggar, who came up to us and asked: “What do you want?”
My brother-in-law answered: “A screwdriver, because my father’s ashes are inside this box.”
“He must have been a very good man, because I just found this lying over there,” said the beggar, holding out a screwdriver.
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