Sparrows and Hawks
There’s an old chinese parable by Chu’ang Tzu, a Taoist philosopher of the 4th century BC, about a gigantic fish that turns into a bird. Chu’ang Tzu is infamously difficult to read, made more complicated by stylistic conventions in which English writers incorporate Chinese terms into the text, so I’m going to offer my own dumbed-down translation because, let’s face it, none of my readers know how long a li is, and it has no real relevance to the message.
Way down deep in the ocean, there’s a big fish. It’s such a big fuckin’ fish, i can’t tell you how big it is. it’s fucking HUGE, let’s leave it at that.
Anyway, this fish changed one day: it transformed into a gigantic hawk, rose out of the ocean, and began flying south. let me tell you, this hawk was so ridiculously big, when it stretched out its wings, it blocked out the sun, and when it flapped its wings, it started hurricanes. It was pretty impressive.
Down on the ground below, a few sparrows saw the gigantic hawk soaring across the sky, thousands of feet above them. the sparrows laughed and said, “who the fuck does that hawk think he is, anyway? When we try to fly, we can only get a few feet up in the air, before we have to perch on a branch and rest. Sometimes we don’t even make it that far! So who does this hawk think he is, flying so high above everyone like that? Why isn’t he satisfied with life here in the woods, where life goes on as usual?”
I often feel as if, in my life in PA and in general, I’m trying, currently, to transform into that hawk. Yet I often feel I keep too much company with sparrows, some of who are actual individuals with who I interact, and some of who are those niggling worries and fears that pester me at 3:00 AM.
Chu’ang Tzu’s story goes on:
If you go off to the green woods nearby, you can take along food for three meals and come back with your stomach as full as ever. If you are going a hundred li, you must grind your grain the night before; and if you are going a thousand li you must start getting together provisions three months in advance.
i think the meaning is evident: you don’t just wake up one day and say “ta-daaaah! i’m a hawk now!” It takes work, planning, dedication, getting your ducks in a row (no pun intended). And maybe i’m a little frustrated because the planning for the journey has taken longer than I’d expected, and has at times gone awry. Best laid plans, etc… but a journey of a thousand mile still begins with one step, and I’ve already made a few of those.
September 14th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I’ve heard the journey itself is half of the fun. Try not to miss the forest for the trees, because the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. Oh, do you know the muffin man?