The Labyrinth

Jorge had been working on a story, and I asked to hear it, but it seemed he wanted to tell it, and so he did.

Joroska had always enjoyed enigmas.  Even as a young boy, he did every crossword puzzle, riddle or maze he could get his hands on.

He became truly dedicated to solving problems.  But some were still too difficult for him and escaped his grasp.

When confronted with such a problem, he always followed the same ritual.  He would look at it for a long time, and then suddenly, calling on all his previous experience, he would decide if it was unsolvable.

If it was, he would exhale deeply, and commit to solving it anyways.  In the beginning these problems would frustrate him, but eventually this ritual of analyzing problems became an obsession.

Over the years, many problems fell into this category: unanswerable questions, dead-ended mazes, indecipherable symbols, unknown words, and impossible illusions.

Around that time, Joroska began realizing that a person needed to be successful in life.  Perhaps that's why he started losing interest in problems he considered unsolvable.

Not long after he started one, he would become ridiculously bored and give up.  In the back of his mind, he would criticize the authors of these absurd problems.

He was just as irritated by easy problems, and he eventually realized that there could be a perfect problem. One made to the measure of a given individual.. but only the person themselves could know that measure.

It would be ideal if a person could make riddles for themselves, he said to himself.  But he realized that someone would immediately lose interest in their own problems, since the creator of a problem would know its solution.

But he was excited about the idea of others like him, who wanted to solve such problems, so he started making them:  word puzzles, number puzzles, logical enigmas, and abstract games... but his masterpiece was a labyrinth.

One calm and quiet afternoon, he started building a wall, brick by brick, inside a room in his house, in order to create a full size labyrinth.

As the years went by, he shared his riddles with friends and was even published in magazines and newspapers, but the labyrinth remained a secret.  And it grew ever larger inside of his house.

With each passing day it became more complicated, more intricate, and although he never intended it, he ended up adding more and more dead ends.

This project became a part of his daily routine and not a day went by that he didn't add to it.  At the very least adding a few bricks, but more often sealing off an exit, or extending a path to make things more difficult.

Twenty years later, there was no space left in the original room, and the labyrinth began creeping out into the rest of the house.

To get from the bedroom to the bathroom he would go eight steps forward, turn left, go six steps further, turn right, go down a flight of stairs, five more steps forward, make another right, and then leap over an obstacle to arrive at the bathroom door.

To get to the terrace, he would lean forward on his left foot, tuck and roll a few meters to get to a rope ladder, and climb to the next floor where the terrace was.

His house was eventually completely transformed.

At first, he found it extremely satisfying.  It was fun and sometimes passageways would lead him nowhere, even though he was the one who created them, because there were too many to remember.

The labyrinth was perfectly matched to his abilities, perfectly matched.

So he starting inviting people over to his house... labyrinth.  But just like when he used to solve other people's puzzles, even the most interested visitors would eventually grow bored.
He offered to guide them, but before long they would ask to leave.  And they all made the same comment.. 'You can't possibly go on living this way!'

He began to feel more and more isolated, so he moved into a new house, one without a labyrinth, one where he could entertain guests.

But whenever he met someone particularly smart, he would bring them to his true home.

Just like the pilot from The Little Prince, and his special drawing, Joroska would only open the doors to his labyrinth for those he deemed worthy of the << distinction>>... but he never found anyone who would wanted to live there with him.

The Look of Love

-I think my parents are getting old and senile.
-I think you're looking at them from a different place.
-What does that have to do with anything?  Things are what they are, like you say.
-Let me tell you a story...

There once was a king who fell in love with a lower class woman named Sabrina.  He transformed her life and made her his queen.
One afternoon the king was out drinking and a messenger arrived to inform the queen that her mother had fallen ill.  She knew it was forbidden to use the king's carriage, the punishment was death, but she got in anyways and rode straight to her mother.
When the king was later informed of the situation he said,
-Isn't it incredible? Love so sincere.  She risked her life.  She didn't hesitate.  She went straight to her mother. Incredible.

The next day Sabrina was picnicking in the palace gardens.  When the king arrived, she greeted him and pulled the last item from her basket, a peach, and offered the king a bite.

-Delicious! he said.
-I know, said the queen, and extending her arm, she gave him the rest.

She loves me so much! the king later commented to his friends.
Denying herself the last delicious peach... wow.

Years passed and the king's love and passion faded.
One night as he was passing time drinking with his friends, he commented, 'She's hardly regal.. can you believe how she stole my carriage, and what kind of queen offers her king a mere bite of some fruit.

Reality is what it is.. but a person may see it one way or the other.

Be wary of your perceptions, as the wise Baldwin said,
We adjust what we see 'to fit' into the reality we find most convenient.
... Don't believe your eyes!

The Ombú's Sprouts

I had hardly entered the room when Jorge started speaking,
  - I have a story for you.
  - A story? Why though?
  - No reason, it just suits you.
  - Ok..
I trusted him.

There once was a small town.
It was so small that it wasn't on most maps.  So small that it had one small town square, and in the middle stood a single tree.

But the people loved the town, they loved the square, they loved the tree: a great Ombú growing right at it's center.  It was also at the center of daily life; every evening after work, the townspeople would gather around 7pm.  Men and women, freshly washed, groomed and well-dressed would gather in a circle and dance around the great tree.

For years and years, children, their parents, and their grandparents had crossed themselves as they passed by.

For years and years, deals had been made beneath its limbs, crucial matters had been decided, marriages had been consecrated and deaths mourned.

One day, something different, something marvelous started happening: from one of the tree's lateral roots, seemingly out of nowhere, a green chute arose and broke the surface with two green leaves pointing skyward.

It was a sprout!  The first sprout that had ever risen from the great tree.

After the initial excitement had settled, a commission was formed to organize a party celebrating the event.

The commission was surprised however, by the fact that not everyone in the town was celebrating.  There were some who worried that this might bring complications.

It turned out that just a few days after the first sprout broke the surface, another appeared.  And after a month or so, there were a dozen rising from the tree's graying roots.

The glee of some of the townsfolk was met with indifference from others, but this wouldn't last.

The guard of the square noticed a change in the old tree.  Its leaves, yellower and weaker now, fell easily from its branches.  Its trunk, once supple and tender had become dry and brittle.

He gave a distressing diagnosis:
  - The Ombú is sick.. and may die.

That evening as the people gathered a discussion arose.  Some said it was because of the offshoots, and it seemed reasonable, everything was fine until they appeared.

The defenders of the offshoots claimed that it was a coincidence, and that the shoots ensured the tree's future.

As these viewpoints took shape, two opposing groups were formed.  One around the tree and the other around its offshoots.

Their discussions became increasingly animated, and their positions moved further apart.  That evening in an attempt to calm peoples' nerves they resolved to discuss the matter at the next day's town meeting.

But they weren't calmed.. The next day, the Defenders of the Ombú, as they were now calling themselves, declared that the only solution was to go back to the way things were.  The sprouts were  like parasites, sapping the tree's energy.  They had to be destroyed before it was too late.

The Defenders of Life, as the second group had baptized itself, appalled by this declaration, gathered and came up with their own solution.  The tree would have to be chopped down.  Its lifecycle was naturally coming to an end.  The sunlight and water that it used was much needed by its growing children.  In any case, it was absurd to defend the Ombú since it was, practically speaking, dead already.

The discussion quickly devolved into arguing, and the arguing became a fracas with screaming, shouting, and even physical attacks.  The police had to be called in to dissolve the scandalous scene, ordering everyone back to their homes.

The Defenders of the Tree gathered that evening and decided it was hopeless, their ignorant adversaries couldn't be persuaded, and it was time for action.  Armed with pick axes, shovels and pruning shears they would attack and once the shoots were destroyed negotiations would go  differently.

Satisfied with their resolution they started towards the town square.

But as they approached the tree, they saw a group of people stacking wood around it.  It was the Defenders of Life, trying to burn it down.

So another 'discussion' came to pass between the defenders, but now they were armed, angry, and ready to destroy one another.

During the fight that ensued, shoots were ripped from the ground, and the tree was badly damaged.
Twenty or more defenders wound up in the hospital.

The following morning the town square was a different scene.  The Defenders of the Tree had raised a barricade around it and four members stood guard at all times.

The Defenders of Life, on the other hand, had dug pits around the remaining offshoots and encircled them with barbed wire.

Things had intensified throughout the rest of the town as well, each group, in their eagerness to gain support, politicized the situation, demanding that the rest of the townspeople choose a side.  Whoever chose the tree was as seen as an enemy of the Defenders of Life, and whoever chose the offshoots became hated by the Defenders of the Tree.

Finally it was decided to bring the matter before the justice of the peace, and during that part of the year it happened to be the priest of their small church.  He would give his decision Sunday.

When Sunday came a rope divided the town square, separating the two groups, but they nevertheless attacked each other verbally.  The uproar was terrifying and no one succeeded in getting anyone else to listen.

Suddenly, the church door opened, and an old man with a cane, followed by the eyes of both groups, began advancing down the hallway.

He must have been more than a hundred years old.  He in fact founded the town in his youth.  He planned its streets, tilled its wild lands, and of course, planted the Ombú.

He was respected by all, and his words were incisive, just as they had been his entire life.

As he moved forward, many outstretched their arms to assist him, but he refused, and with some difficulty nevertheless ascended the dais and spoke.

- Imbeciles! - he said.  You call yourselves the Defenders of the Tree and the Defenders of Life... defenders!?  You can't defend anything if your sole intention is to harm those who think differently than you do.

You don't realize that you are all mistaken.

The Ombú is not a rock.  It is a living thing with its own lifecycle.  Part of that cycle is giving life to those who will continue its mission when it dies, and preparing its offshoots to become new trees.

But the offshoots and the tree aren't separated.  They can't survive if the tree dies, and life makes no sense for the tree if it has no way to continue in the form of new life.

Prepare yourselves Defenders of Life.  Train and arm yourselves.  The moment will soon arrive for you to burn down your parents' houses with your parents still inside.  They are aging and will soon be a burden to you.

Prepare yourselves, Defenders of the Tree.  With your recent training tearing up offshoots, you should be prepared to tear your own children up from their roots, and murder them as soon as they want to replace or supercede you.

  You call yourselves 'Defenders'
  The only thing you want to do is destroy...
  And you don't realize that by destroying
  and destroying
  you destroy inexorably
  everything you sought to defend
  Reflect!
  You haven't much time...

And with that, the old man slowly descended from the dais, walked back through the silent crowd... and left.

Jorge remained silent, but I kept crying and crying, and eventually I got up and left.  I was tired but clear minded...
  There was so much to be done!