Passing on a tale (or should I say tail?)

I never quite know if parables like this have any value to anyone else, but they do to me. I tend to walk a fine line between strength and despair, between encouragement and hopelessness, and find that sometimes a good parable, a good quote, or even a weepy Hallmark card will renew enough of me to keep me out of the bottomless pit of cynicism.

This came my way today, though the source is unknown. And though it reads more like a cheesy email forward than a Pulitzer-Prize winning piece of writing, I felt fulfilled after reading it, so I share it with all of you.

Once there was a very old man who used to meditate early every morning under a large tree on the bank of the Ganges River in India. One morning, having finished his meditation, the old man opened his eyes and saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the strong current of the river. As the scorpion was pulled closer to the tree, it got caught in the long tree roots that branched out far into the river. The scorpion struggled frantically to free itself but got more and more entangled in the complex network of the tree roots.

When the old man saw this, he immediately stretched himself onto the extended roots and reached out to rescue the drowning scorpion. But as soon as he touched it, the animal jerked and stung him wildly. Instinctively, the man withdrew his hand, but then having regained his balance, he once again stretched himself out along the roots to save the agonized scorpion. But every time the old man came within reach, the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hands became bloody and his face distorted by the pain.

At that moment, a passerby saw the old man stretched out on the roots with the scorpion and shouted, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool risks his life for the sake of an ugly, useless creature. Don't you know that you may kill yourself to save that ungrateful animal?"

Slowly, the old man turned his head and, looking calmly into the stranger's eyes, he said, "Friend, because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting, why should I give up my own nature to save?"