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The Selfish Youth

One day a youth arrived in a country that was unknown to him; he came from a country that was unknown to the land he’d arrived in. Indeed, no one he met had visited his land, no one had heard of it - no one even believed in it. However the youth was not troubled by the peoples’ disbelief in his origin, for if they could not accept what he himself knew to be true it only made it all the easier for him to dismiss the conviction with which they condemned his quest. For condemn it they did.

You see the youth had left his home to please himself: to find whatever made him happy, to enjoy all the world’s delights; to obtain for himself that which would make him content. Yet when he told the people his dream and purpose, they named it ‘selfish’. Though the youth frowned at the word, he did not argue - in truth he understood them no better than they he. It took the interruptions of Life to bring common understanding.

For it so happened that one day the youth was walking by the river when he came upon a group of the townsfolk in great distress. A young child had fallen from a boat and had been swept to where she now clung desperately to a rock that had both saved and imprisoned her in the centre of the rushing water. The child was obviously in great danger, as would be any who tried to reach her, for the river here was too fast and hazardous to be entered by man or boat. Yet when the youth saw the child he thought no more of her dilemma than how best to solve it, which he did with a curious trick.

He watched the water a good while, studying its flows and eddies and learning its ways. After which he walked up stream and calmly threw himself in. The people stared in amazement as the river seemed to grab hold of the youth, carry him to the rock, allow him to grasp the child, and then carry him onwards to where the flow neared the bank again and the youth was able to struggle out. When he made his way back to the people, who rushed to meet him, he was genuinely surprised at the words of praise and gratitude that rained on his head.

Bemused, the youth placed the shivering child into her mother’s arms and returned to his stroll. The people watched after him with new eyes.

This may have turned the peoples’ favour towards him. Yet when they later told him with great passion that he could not truly be selfish if he would so casually risk his life, he simply replied that to be one of ‘selfish’, as they put it, was all he wished for. So the people, being of devout humility and duty, again became scornful - if a little less certain about it.

Yet their resolve was further tested when later it happened that the youth came upon a man begging for food in the street. Surprised that no other seemed to see the man, he took it upon his time to sit and share his lunch with the man - showing him just how to eat so that the food would expand itself in the mouth, thus feeding them both fully. The beggar was much affected by this passing, and asked the youth if he was indeed the one who called himself selfish, when he youth smiled and nodded happily, the man shook his head with confusion and wonder.

And so it went on, each time the youth saw some need, he filled it; each time the people said he wasn’t selfish, he vexed them by affirming he was - and happy about it.

Eventually the people became so exasperated with the youth’s duality, that they sent their oldest and wisest one to speak with him; to learn the truth of this anomaly. When the old one asked the youth why he called himself selfish, the youth shrugged and said that he understood that to be the right word for someone who sought only to make the self happy. The old one replied that was indeed so, but if that was his only wish, why did he go out of his way to help others. The youth frowned and responded that was his way. So the old one asked what the youth would call one who did nothing for another. And it was to this that the boy made a curious comment: He said that in his land anyone who ignored the self, whether the self within his body or the self within another’s, would not be described as one who was truly ‘Self-fishing’.

The old one started and stared at the youth, before throwing back grey locks to laugh, enjoying the absurdity of such a large misunderstanding based merely upon an unfamiliar word. Yet when the aged eyes fell again on the youth they met a face so full of purity that certainty fell away. So much so in fact that, as the old one left, the youth heard his own words, ‘self-fishing’ repeated over and over from the old one’s lips.

The next day, when the people came to hear the judgement of their wisest, they discovered no sign of the elder - finding instead, a large note pinned on the door reading: ‘Gone Self-fishing’.

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