Chapter 6

On many an occasion his majesty would be riding through a city and see a huge building he didn't recognize, and upon inquiry, discover that it was yet one more warehouse full of his loot. And let me tell you, these warehouses were so glutted with gold and jewels and coins and rich carpets and Old Master paintings and antique vases that when the king wanted to look inside one, the jewels would flow out the door like gravel and the coins would spill out like water. His servants got so tired of replacing the excess that they finally just began to shovel it into the trash can after the king left. (Of course, they probably helped themselves to a little bit of it, too.)

In his palaces, the king had so much fancy stuff that ancient statues were used as door props in the stables, thousand-year-old urns were used as spittoons in the kitchen, and scraps of precious carpets were used to clean the servants' boots. The point is that after all this additional acquisition, the king's lifestyle was much fancier, but the king himself was still not happy.

"What his majesty needs is activity," said the king's culture minister. "Activity is the rubbing paper that scours the rust from the soul and burnishes her to a new shine. If the king would just engage in some hobbies, he would find contentment." So the king took up some hobbies: hunting, painting, dancing, building (more mansions and castles), eating, woodworking, stamp collecting, riding (in his golden carriage and on horseback), swimming (in his pool full of pearls), and even knitting. In all he tried thousands or perhaps hundreds of activities, each of them dozens of times.

He also held athletic contests, built amusement parks, and ransacked the world for jugglers and magicians and singers and players and storytellers (that's how I met him) and musicians. He ate too much, drank too much, and danced and played and watched and traveled and did too much and basically engaged in a constant frenzy of activity from morning to night, from January to December, from the beginning of the decade to its end. And the result was that he was amused for awhile, but was mostly fat and tired and sometimes drunk and often disoriented, but still not happy.

"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he ruled the surrounding lands and felt secure from attack," suggested the head of his army. "For the proverb says, 'In security lies happiness.'" So his majesty instructed his generals to go forth and conquer the territories around him. After a preposterous quantity of noise, smoke, blood, guts, and dying, the king found himself in possession of jillions of acres of farms and towns and houses and cottages and the souls of all those who lived therein. He now ruled over the land as far as he--or even someone with good eyesight--could see in every direction from the top of his highest tower. At any time of day or night the king could call for the relief of a distressed friend or the beheading of an enemy. He had absolute say over the life or death, the happiness or suffering, of millions of people of every rank and degree, from the most exalted noble in a seaside mansion to the most unfortunate street urchin in a grimy and stifling hovel. Such a thought sometimes gave the king half a smile, but he was still not happy.

"Perhaps what the king needs is love," said the eunuch in charge of the king's harem. "If he would marry a new variety of ever more beautiful wives, he would perchance find happiness among them." So the king decided to realize this scenario in three dimensions and searched throughout his kingdom for the most desirable women he could find. He found pretty ones and witty ones and laughing ones and moody ones and smart ones and elegant ones and plain ones and philosophical ones and decorated ones--women of every proportion, size, color, personality, and talent, and he married a hundred of them, some of whom loved him even more than those among the first few dozen he was already married to. And the king found much pleasure in his wives, but he was still not truly happy.

"The king will find happiness only in wisdom," said one of the king's scholars. "For it is written that 'truth is a joy unto itself.'" So the king applied himself to books of wisdom, and to seeking the knowledge of all his many scholars and sending throughout all his realm to find the wise from every land. Dozens came and dozens pretended to instruct him in wisdom or in the way to happiness, but while he found some really good advice and some satisfying rules for life, happiness still eluded him.

Then one day came a woman from a land beyond the sunrise. Her words were few but they so affected those who listened that she was immediately granted an audience with the king, who explained the discontent of his condition.

"Here before me," he said, "it would seem that I have everything a man could want. I have three or four rings on every finger, I can caress a beautiful woman's hair in any color, I can ride a week in any direction and find my statue erected and feared, and I can hear any melody or see any play at my command. I possess or can do or enjoy everything I can imagine, and everything that the most creative of my servants can imagine. And yet I find that happiness is nowhere to be found. I am always rankled by a feeling of dissatisfaction and haunted by an awareness of emptiness."

"Truly, his majesty's desires seem to be infinite," said one of his courtiers, scarcely more able to hide his disgust than his envy.

"His majesty's desires are indeed infinite," said the woman. "For that is the nature of the human heart. The heart's deepest desires cannot be satisfied by any finite thing."

"Then what am I to do?" asked the king with dismay.

"You must seek the Infinite," the woman said.

"And where can I find it?" he asked. "What form does it take?"

"The Infinite is not a thing or in a particular place," said the woman. "But seek Him and you will find happiness."

When the people saw that the woman was returning to her land, they asked what she had said to the king.

"She reminded us of what we had forgotten," said one of the king's scholars, "that we are but travelers through an ephemeral landscape, and that on a journey through a desert, we should not expect to find happiness from fingering the grains of sand in the dunes. We find happiness by finding our way home."

The Day Creativity Met the Linear Dragon

It was a winter's rainy day when the new Vice President for Design Concepts (who had just been promoted from Senior Accountant because he could calculate to the nearest nickel how much a new car would cost to build) noticed that two of his employees, a young man and a young woman, were not at their desks. Upon inquiring, he was told that they had "gone to the loft to be creative." The Vice President (who could remember the part number of every component he had ever touched) calmly adjusted his bow tie, cleared his throat, checked to see that his shoelaces were still tied, and then strode briskly down the long corridor of the half-remodeled automobile factory. Soon he was walking up the stairs to the loft, only to arrive at a door marked, "Do Not Disturb."

Viewing the sign as an affront to his authority, he applied Chapter Two of the assertiveness training book he had just finished and quickly opened the door with determination and a scowl.

What he saw was not what he expected. Near the door was a boom box, playing very lively but not overly loud classical music. Directly in front of him across the room he saw the young woman, barefoot and wearing, instead of her business attire, purple sweatpants and a torn green sweatshirt. Worse than this, she was turning cartwheels and saying what sounded to him like, "Put it in the lake, dip it, water proof it, French dip it, soak it, drench it, pinch it, wrench it." When she stopped to attend to his interruption, he noticed that her hair was rubber banded into a vertical column on top of her head.

The young man was sitting off to one side, wearing jeans and a T-shirt printed with the words, "None of the Above." Nearby was an open ream of copier paper, many sheets of which he had evidently wrinkled up into a ball and tossed at a trash can a few feet away, with highly indifferent accuracy. A few of the sheets had been written on with multicolored felt-tip pens and placed carelessly in several piles.

"What's going on here?" demanded the Vice President.

"We work here," said the young man.

"Not any more you don't," said the Vice President sternly. "Just what do you think you're doing, anyway?"

"We're working on the new Blister DLX," said the young woman.

"I don't see any work being done here," the Vice President shot back.

"We're thinking," the young woman said.

"This doesn't look like thinking to me."

"Oh? And what does thinking look like to you?" asked the young man.

"Well, it certainly doesn't look like this. This is goofing off--and stop wasting that paper. Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Scott and this is Tina," the young man said. "We're creative analysts. We're working on cost-cutting ideas."

"Cost cutting?" sneered the Vice President. "You don't even have a calculator. And besides, we've got engineers and accountants to cut costs, so even if you were doing that, you'd be either superfluous or redundant. I want you out of the plant by this afternoon."

That afternoon Scott and Tina went to the Vice President's office. As Scott stretched out on the floor and began to spread out a few papers, Tina pushed aside many feet of adding machine tape and sat in the Lotus position on one end of the Vice President's desk. The Vice President was not quite so upset that he did not notice that Tina was wearing earrings made from crumpled balls of paper hanging from bent paper clips. "We'd like to ask you to reconsider your firing us," said Tina. "We have some good ideas for the Blister."

"Get out," said the Vice President.

The next day all the executives met at a regularly scheduled administrative meeting, where there seemed to be some confusion and delay in getting started. Finally, the President of the company spoke up. "I'm sorry for the delay," he said, "but we had scheduled a report on cost saving ideas by two of our top creative analysts and it now appears that some idiot fired them yesterday. However, we are in the process of getting everything straightened out, and they should be here soon."

"I hope it's Scott and Tina," one of the other executives said. "They're really brilliant."

"If unconventional," noted another.

"Unconventional or not," said the Chief Operating Officer, "I'll never forget how they saved us eighty-six million dollars on the Dazzle II by helping us reduce the number of parts. And when their expense account came through, all they'd bought were radio batteries and a couple of reams of paper."

"I remember that," said the first executive. "No fancy research, no costly experiments, just pure thought, just great ideas. They actually know how to think."

"What kind of a jerk would fire people like that?" someone asked.

And so it was that the new Vice President for Design Concepts was invited to take his skills to some other company, even though he could recite the exact cost of every part of every car the corporation made.

The Wall and the Bridge

In the high country of a far away land there once stood a massive wall, blocking the pass between two mountains. Just below the wall was a path leading around the mountains--a path made possible by a bridge connecting it across a deep chasm directly in front of the wall.

Now, the wall and the bridge were always bickering. One day when an old peddler leading an even older mule with a load of shabby wares crossed the bridge on the way to a distant fair, the wall said to the bridge, "You know, the trouble with you is that you have absolutely no discretion. You let just anyone walk over you. In fact, you're the slut of architectural forms, granting promiscuous entry to all and sundry."

"Is the greenness I see all over you moss or envy?" replied the bridge. "I enable people to fulfill their dreams; I provide opportunity for a better life. You're just an obstructionist, but I'm a facilitator--a metaphor for access, for hope, for possibility."

On another day a young maiden fleeing evil men ran across the rocks until she reached the wall where she could go no farther. She cried out and pounded her fists against the wall in despair until the men caught up with her and carried her away. The bridge then said to the wall in disgust, "You once accused me of having no discretion, but you are worse, for you are completely heartless. You're so cold and rigid that you cruelly prevent even the distressed and needy from passing by. Maybe that's why walls are known everywhere as symbols of 'No!' while we bridges are known as symbols of 'Yes!'"

"You, my loose and easy friend," said the wall, "indeed let the distressed pass, but you also let the criminals pass. I, on the other hand, provide the needed security to keep the land behind me safe from harm. I am a protector, and I defend this pass and the country well."

This dialogue continued for many years until one morning when suddenly the earth shook with great violence. So strong was the tremor that both the wall and the bridge were reduced to rubble at the bottom of the chasm. Not many months later men came to repair the damage. In the process of reconstruction, however, the stones that were once part of the bridge were used to rebuild the wall and the stones that were once part of the wall were used to rebuild the bridge.

"Now I'll show you what a wall should really be like," said the new wall. "It shouldn't be cold and rejecting to everybody." And so at first, the new wall let many people climb up over it.

"And I'll show you what a bridge should do," said the new bridge. "It shouldn't let just anybody across." And so at first, the new bridge provided a difficult passage, causing many travelers to trip on the surface and a few even to fall over the edge.

But as spring and summer, harvest and winter came and went again and again, the rocks on the new wall grew more and more slippery and the little projections gradually broke away, so that climbing over or even getting a foothold became very difficult. And in the same passage of time, the rough spots on the new bridge wore down and the crevices filled up, so that passage across became much easier.

"You see," said the new bridge to the new wall, "you've learned something about being a wall."

"Well," the new wall replied, "I've known all along that I must guard the pass and fortify the defenses of the country. And of course I know it's my job to keep out all those who don't belong. But I see you've finally discovered how to be a bridge."

"You can say what you like," answered the new bridge. "But I've always understood that I provide a critical link in the path around the mountains, and that my purpose is to help travelers across the gorge."

As the years collected, as years do, the new bridge and the new wall began to think less and less about what they had once been and more and more about the task they currently had to do, until eventually it became impossible for anyone to tell that the new wall had once been a bridge or that the new bridge had once been a wall.

"How indiscriminate and common you are," the new wall would often tell the new bridge.

"And how inflexible and repressive you are," the new bridge would reply.

The Wish

While walking along the beach one day, a man spotted an old, barnacle-covered object which on closer examination he discovered to be an ancient bronze oil lamp. "Hah! Aladdin's lamp," he thought, jokingly. "I'll rub it." To his surprise, when he did rub it, a genie appeared.

"Okay, Bud," said the genie, in a remarkably bored tone. "You have one wish--anything you want. What is it?"

"Money," the man said instantly, his eyes widening. "Yes! Endless money. Riches! Wealth! Ha! Ha! Huge, massive, obscene wealth!"

"I thought so," said the genie in the same bored tone.

"No, wait," the man said, his eyes suddenly narrowing. "Power. Yeah, that's it. Complete and total power over everyone and everything in the world. With power I could get all the money I wanted."

"So you want power, huh?" asked the genie.

"Well, yes," said the man, now a bit hesitant because of the genie's less-than-enthusiastic tone. "Of course, with money I suppose I could buy power. Which do you think I should ask for, Genie?"

"How about world peace or personal humility or an end to famine or maybe an end to greed," suggested the genie, emphasizing the last phrase. "Or perhaps the gift of discernment or knowledge or spiritual enlightenment or even simple happiness."

"But with money or power I could buy or command all those," objected the man.

"Yeah, sure," said the genie.

"Well, just give me power and I'll show you that I can have everything else, too."

"You shall have what you ask," said the genie resignedly. "Whether you shall have what you imagine you must learn for yourself, and you will soon find out."

"Well, I certainly hope to have it all. Don't you ever hope, Genie?"

"Yes," said the genie. "I hope that someday my lamp will fall into the hands of a wise man."

And so the man was given power over everything on earth, over every government, every event, every activity of every soul. As a result, his name was soon pronounced with hatred and contempt by everyone, and in a few months he was assassinated by his most trusted followers.

Several One Way Conversations

"Yes, they are shackles, but they are made of gold," said the man, as he asked for another pair on his wrists and two more on his ankles.

* * *

"You can see how great I am by observing what I have done," said the chisel to the other tools, as they gazed upon the beautiful statue.

* * *

"My word is as good as my check," said the forger, as he handed over partial payment and promised to pay the balance later.

* * *

"May you get everything you want," said the philosopher to his enemy, knowing that his enemy would not recognize his words as a curse.

* * *

"I'll teach this dirt not to muddy my shoes," said the man, shoveling madly, only soon to discover himself in a pit.

* * *

"Now I see how essential material things are," said the man, as he looked at the ashes of his burned down house.

* * *

"How dare you, who are nothing but a low worm, try to tell me what to do," said the man, as he stood there unmoving, just before the piano landed on him.

How the King Learned about Love

Back in the days of knights and chivalry and courtly love, a beautiful young woman fell in love with a man of noble birth, who, however, was already married. Their love continued to grow until the woman granted and the man took more than virtue could properly countenance and one morning the woman awakened with the right to use the pronoun "we" whenever she spoke.

She realized that she could not inform her lover because of his position, for he was not only married but also a very prominent member of the court. So she concealed the matter remarkably over many months, until, in the fullness of time, it could be concealed no longer. At that point she resolved to throw herself on the mercy of her mistress, the king's daughter, to whom she was a lady in waiting. She took her newborn son to the princess and begged quite pathetically for her help.

The king's daughter, knowing that he was a hard man who had never hesitated to crush, kill, or otherwise persecute anyone who offended him in the slightest, realized that she could not tell the truth or say simply that the child had been found during one of the princess' walks, because the king would then send it to a harsh life in an orphanage--and that would be if she found him in a good mood. She decided instead to declare to the king that the child was her own and take the guilt, together with any other consequences, upon herself, for she loved her lady in waiting very much.

When the king learned that his daughter had given birth (or so he believed), he was unutterably furious, and spent the better part of an hour ranting and shouting execrations and breaking things. But when he demanded which of his knights had helped her into this situation, the princess, not willing to sacrifice any of the noble and completely innocent knights of the castle, invented the story of a secret lover from outside the castle walls.

The king suspected that his daughter was lying, or trying to lie--for the girl was so honest that she could not dissemble with conviction--so that he was now even more uncontrollably enraged than before; he now began screaming directly at his daughter and breaking larger and more expensive things. And because he could think of nothing but her duplicity and disobedience and his injured honor and her betrayal of his affection, he coldly (or rather hotly) determined to banish her from the kingdom. "For," he argued, "I will love not those who love not me." He therefore cruelly turned the girl and the child over to the traders of a passing caravan from a distant land who would take them past the borders of the kingdom.

Even as she saw her father's look of hatred as she was packed into the wagon at the rear of the caravan, the princess did not alter her resolve to keep her secret, for now she knew that if the king knew the truth, her lady in waiting would most certainly be executed. As for the lady in waiting, she was so stricken with grief over the king's actions that she very nearly took her own life. But the princess had commanded her never to reveal the secret, regardless of the consequences, and the lady in waiting feared that the princess would be exposed by such an action. So the woman, helpless to remedy the situation, instead fled the palace in tears.

As the traders proceeded out of the kingdom, the princess resolved that, whatever should happen to herself, she would not see the child grow up a slave. She therefore watched carefully for an opportunity and one night sneaked off from the traders as far as she could get in the cold and dark, and put the child near a hut, hoping and praying that it would find safety and a free life, however humble. She then sneaked back to the traders, and pretended to be cuddling the baby in her arms.

The caravan traveled two full days before her deception was detected. When it was, the princess once again played audience to violent anger. The traders yelled and cursed the girl; then they beat her with fists and even with sticks, accompanied by more curses and threats; but nothing they could do could force her to tell what she had done with the baby. The traders, remembering the promises made to them by the king to encourage the secrecy of their charges, and fearing the consequences of a breach of that secrecy, sent riders back over the route they had traveled, to search everywhere.

Meanwhile an old woodcutter, who lived in the hut with his wife, found the baby and brought it inside. As they looked upon the beautiful, healthy child, their eyes shone with a sparkle that they thought had long ago disappeared forever. But even in their delight, they recognized immediately that the child was no ordinary foundling, for it had noble features and was wrapped in silks and wore a gold brooch with a white lily on it.

They soon recognized that the child would need better fare than the rough crusts and ordinary water the couple subsisted on--for they were extremely poor--so they began to wonder how they could take care of it.

"We could pick some of our neighbor's fruit at night," suggested the woman, "or perhaps sell the gold brooch."