Sometimes I wonder if I could possibly be more stupid. I say things I don’t mean, I mean things but then don’t say them, I screw up, I doubt, I meander, I procrastinate, and I beat myself up verbally and publically.

You must think I’m quite the loser right now. I would ask that you simply agree with me: I don’t want to hear otherwise.

Let me tell you a story. There was once a man who enjoyed shopping, and as he was shopping, he noticed the most lovely antique camera. The most lovely expensive camera he had ever seen. In fact, it was so expensive, he would have to sell everything he had to buy it. And so, after flirting with the idea for a while, he decided it was more prudent to have that thing he wanted than to have all the other things that suddenly seemed dull beside it.

So it was that he came to own the camera. And he used it, and was happy for a while. But (as there always must be a “but” in these stories) as it turns out, the camera was imperfect: the photographs it took were smudged in places, and grainy in others. On the bus one day, he began to wonder if he had done the right thing - he had, after all, sold his car.

As he walked home, it stopped raining - it was raining, you see - sunlight breaking through the clouds, reflecting off nearby apartment buildings. He took the camera out to take a picture. Being something of a goof, he forgot to put the strap around his neck, and as usually happens when one forgets to put ones strap around ones neck, he stepped back to get a better view of the buildings, and tripped.

The camera went flying up, and his heart stopped for a moment. But he righted himself and caught it just before it would have smashed itself into little pieces on the pavement.

When his heart started again, he began to walk home, until it hit him. The imperfections, suddenly, seemed so very small, and the sacrifices.

dan

Tags: fiction, parables, personal