My moth needs to be fed

He seemed to be frustrated and tired.  Having worked for nearly 30 years and having brought up two wonderful children by giving them the best of life and education  it was time to take stock of his own life.  What stock?  He had nothing to even fill a post-it pad.  His legs were tired, he popped in his little tablet to control his  blood pressured swirled it deftly in the toungue and running his fingers through his long hair he spoke thus.

“Its time for me to become a spiritual guru”  

I understood were he was coming from and whence he wanted to proceed.  I have been through it myself.  Having served ‘honorable’ professions one has just managed to live that hand to mouth sort of way.  There is nothing more valuable than wisdom and knowledge has been the guiding principle of life.  Wealth and currency were considered food for the moth that will be nibbled and will eventually be down to shreds, passing on unimaginable pains to the generations to come was what I believed.

Today in the late noon of life, eyeing the evening and night one wonders if the dinner will be served at all. Will the children provide the light when the darkness over shadows us?  Will they place the porridge on the bowl to quieten the noise of the growling stomach?

A sense of urgency and desperation takes over.  Quickly shoving the hand into the pocket to count the pennies that remain one realises its time to pick up some fast food.  When the evening falls  when our flesh becomes tender as the wings of the moth we will fly aimlessly zig zagging in the air.  The moth needs food. The story changes a bit.

Those few pennies and some thin slices of wisdom  are the only possession. The man in the long white robe comes along and says he has a food court with read counters to serve fast food. Instant and fresh Heavenly food.  My pennies do the gig in my pocket  and the wisdom slices squiggle in its packing,  as they hear those words.

Now here Iam at a fast food counter selling junk and gathering up food for my moths.

Wisdom can blind you

Who is this guy ?  he is in tattered clothes and seems drunk……… but his eyes resemble that of a learned. I mumbled.

The man next to me filled me up saying

“The man indeed excelled in academics he comes from a stock of the learned. While in school and college he topped the charts so consistently that he was bored with the academic challenges that was set before him.  His hunger for knowledge made him gravitate towards material that was far above what his teachers could handle”  We had cautioned him to go slow and be within limits  but he paid no heed.  Poor chap. Now he is rejected by home, and by society. He roams the streets foraging the bins for his food. Nobody will ever  suspect that he is a storehouse of knowledge, and even if they do come to know they only subject him to more persecution”

So the saying that too much of anything, even knowledge, is bad seems to be true isnt it?  I quipped.

The man agreed before I could complete the sentence.  Yes we have to have to balance you see _ he said.

You mean we have to be average?  I responded sitting on intellects pinnacle

Hmmmm!!!!!!!  he thought and said I guess so.

Now if a man were to become devoted to knowledge and does not to tend to other ‘real’ things he is likely to be considered as one with no balance.  Is that what you mean? I asked him.  I had all along assumed that this man I was conversing was a simpleton from low estate.  I erred in my judgement that came out of my own limited understanding.

Suddenly the bright eyes of this strange man dimmed and faded.  He looked at me and said “If I had given you an intelligent answer to your question in the first place you would not have spoken to me.  The foolishness of my answer actually gave you a feeling of being on top and you spoke to me wanting to go higher and higher.  Well in fact I deliberately went lower and lower in your sight  for you to feel good about yourself for all I wanted was someone to talk to me” 

I felt I was brought low all of a sudden, here Iam sitting next to a man who had this power to take me high and bring me low.  Who are you?  I asked.  I was a bit frazzled now.

How does it matter? I am not dirty neither can you see me begging for food or foraging the bins for it.  I ask nothing of you neither food nor money.  All  I ask of you is to talk to converse.  Does my standing as a person matter?  Consider me to be a fool from the lowest of tribes, consider me to be an animal.  Measure yourself with me and I will bring myself so low to make you feel like a one entitled for the highest honor and fame.

Every single time this strange man deigned himself to be brought low I was hitting the lowest ebb of my own  life.  I began to hate him. Yet the man was so intriguing in his conversation that he  drew me towards him.  I wish I was an elastic.  All I want to know was his identity, were he came from, what has he studied and acheived and he refuses to give me those pegs that can pin him to a place.  This drunken dirty fool, who is the reason behind our conversation, can be pegged on a platform and judged.  While this strange man has a feet of jelly and a mind so mercurial.

Who are you?  I asked him again. I was annoyed.

He merely said that “I  am he, that drunken  dirty fool, is in search of.”

They why dont you bare yourself to him?  you may save his life and that he may get his sanity back.

He said ” He looks at me but refuses to see me.”

But I can see you right? why cant he see you?

“His own wisdom and knowledge has blinded his eyes hence he cannot see” said the stranger and walked away.

Here I am stranded on my tracks. I went close to the drunken man, lifted him up and took me home. He dined at my table and drank  of my cup. He never spoke a word for long and then one day he asks me ” Did that man you were talking to tell you to take good care of me? “

I confessed that I knew him not.  I did what I did out of sheer  Instinct I said.  I just felt like taking care of you and I did, that’s it.

So it was that old blighter Instinct again, up to his devious games he said and walked off on to the open skies to the streets.