long time no...

Post? I don't fully know what the verb would be there.

Anyway. I've got two rather lengthy things I want to post, neither of which were written by me. I'll start with the less lengthy, less cryptic of them, and I'll move on to the extraordinarily long, rather cryptic one (which is by Tolkien) tomorrow.

The Mirror
a parable by:
Ben Guo

The man looked in the mirror one morning and sensed that something was wrong. It was a vague feeling, and his head was muddled. He tried to ignore the feeling, but it persisted. Finally, he attempted a closer look at the mirror. He decided that he would shave and exercise more often. He did this, but every morning when he looked in the mirror, the feeling that something was not right still nagged at him. After a few weeks, he resolved to quit drinking and smoking. He was now a healthy man, but whenever he looked in the mirror he still sensed that something was not right.

Some months passed, and the man decided that the problem was deeper. He read books and studied. He tried many religions. He tried to find himself. His employers sensed a change in him and his living standard soon improved. But every morning when he looked in the mirror, he was nagged by the same feeling, just as vague as it was when it first appeared to him.

The man continued his routine. His life was good. But the feeling persisted. He gave to charities, volunteered for community service, but then saw that the problem was greater. It was a problem he couldn’t fix with generosity. There was something wrong with society, and that was what he felt whenever he looked in the mirror. So the man tried to fix the world. But every morning he looked in the mirror he felt the same vague feeling.

The man was old, and so was the mirror. For decades the mirror had tormented him. One day, the old man brought home a new mirror. While taking the old mirror down, he realized that its frame was slightly askew. He hung the new mirror on the wall, and sighed. He had fixed the world.

I like the message, there. That it's not only not about physical appearance, by also not even about spirituality and doing good in the world: It's about frame of mind (pardon the semi-pun.)

-lelandpaul