A pious man explained to his followers: "It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. 'Don't be scared,' I tell those fishes. 'I am saving you from drowning.' Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes."
I really like the story above and it has a lot of relevance to my life. i think it means that we are all well intentioned in what we do, but we are single-minded in our enthusiasm to make things turn out the way we want them to. society is the fish market...we "make a profit" through its endorsement of our actions. we then go back out, flush with the "cash" of this endorsement, and proceed to expand what we have done before...spreading our version of the truth. we are well intentioned, but blind. we aren't concerned with the status of our "fish." we are fixated on the rightfulness of our intentions, and thus don't see the proverbial forest for the trees.
i see this happening around me with parents and their children. the pious man states that it is evil to take lives, and noble to save them. so he saves them from themselves. the parents i see, including myself sometimes, take away our children's life choices by making things "right" when there is trouble. we think by fixing it for the kid, we are being noble and doing the right thing. actually, i think we are being evil by robbing them of the opportunity to grow through dealing with adversity. the fish, of course, die out of the water and they become "calm and still." well, kids do that too. they stop fighting for themselves and become dead to the possibility of dealing with their own problems. all these dead fish go to the market, or out into the world, as examples of doing the right thing. but they have not improved the world a bit by becoming pawns. those who consider this action a success are buoyed by the others around them doing the same thing. if everyone is saving the fish kids from drowning, it must be a noble action. the fish become the vehicle by which we continue to ruin the society we live in. at some point, there will be no fish left and we will have to face the consequences of what we have done...we have killed off the independent idea gene pool, the very place that is the heart of what makes us human.
a gripping morality tale about the consequences of intentions-both good and bad-and about the shared responsibility that individuals must accept for the actions of others.
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