Unexpected Encounter

 

It was a long time ago, I was young, I was out travelling like some students do, discovering the world and all that.

It was in the mountains. Mount Everest I think, or was it the Pair O'knees? No ... Ben Nevis, that was the name of the hotel keeper. Or the mountain ... or ...

Anyway, I met this hermit. A man who lives alone in the middle of nowhere eating berries and locusts ... or is it licorice? Something beginning with L anyway. Linguine? No that's not it.

He was naked in a barrel. He called me and said, "Wisdom is acquired and not found!"

I nodded and said nothing. I was tired so I sat down on the ground whilst he dried himself up and wrapped his scrawny skeletal body in a toga type outfit. Maybe it was in Italy ... do they have mountains in Italy?

He said, "Imagine, young man, you are walking on a beach and you see footprints. One set of feet, the left ones, are bare, whilst the others, the right, distinctly show that the foot is wearing a sandal. What would you deduce from that?"

"I guess the person has lost one of his sandals," I replied.

"No necessarily so, my not-so-wise friend" he smiled, "it could be that the person has just found a sandal, not lost one!"

I nodded again and said nothing.

"Let us say," continued the toga-wearing hermit, "that later on you find a sandal; what would you deduce from that?"

"I guess it is the sandal that the wearer lost," I said.

"Again, not necessarily so," he chuckled, "it could be that the walker got fed up limping with one bare foot and one with a sandal, so he threw the sandal he found away!"  

After a few moments' silence he spoke again.

"We often deduce things from limited information," he said, "and our deductions are based on our attitude to life. You said the man had lost a sandal; I said he had found one. You were negative in your deduction. You assumed the sandal was the one that was lost, I said it was the one he had found and he threw it away."

I smiled. He had a point. I was somewhat negative in my thinking; but life tends to make you so sometimes.

He continued, "A man in the sea is always wet. A wet man on the beach was not necessarily in the sea!"

Another good point, I thought. It could be raining, or he got wet by some other way.

"A river never flows up the mountain," he added after a pause.

I decided it was time to go. I got up, smiled and waved him goodbye. 

"Remember," he said as he waved back, "the dogs in the desert run much faster because the trees are further apart!"

And the moral of this story:

If you ever walk your dog in the desert never use one of those extendable/retractable leads. They'll never be long enough.