The Story of The Wise Old Man and The River.

written by J.P. Fenyo , Philosopher.

There is an ancient story, so old that no one remembers where it comes from.

Once upon a time there was a young man who wanted to save his village from a plague of locusts that had killed off all the village's crops (vegetables,fruits. etc.) on the side of the river that they had lived for ages. The young man could see in the distance that the land on the other side of the wide river was fertile, full of life and free from the plague pf locusts. So he tried to swim across with a long rope tied to an old but strong tree on his side of the river. He knew that if he could make it to the other side he would be able to tie the rope to another tree there and the village could start building a rope and wood plank bridge and they could all move over to the greener side of the river! But the currents in the middle of the wide river were too strong and he nearly drowned in his attempt to swim over. So he became sad and when he finally fell asleep that night he had a weird dream.

In his dream he met a wise old man sitting under a Fufu Tree. And after telling the wise old man why he was so sad, the old man said these wise ancient words: "Sometimes to get to get the results we want we must use a method that seems totally unrelated to our goal, and so you too must find an island in the middle of the river and see if you can swim there first! Once you are half way safe it will be easier to get to the other side after being able to rest in the middle! Things that do not seem to be part of the solution to a problem, often are the very things you need to do in order to solve the problem!" Whe the young woke up the next day he searched for an island further upstream and found it! And by first swimming to that island he was finally able to cross to the other side! The whole village was able to cross over to the greener side and the young man was rewarded for having saved the village from famine and disaster!"

The beginning.

This story is also in the form of a brief quotation:

"Sometimes to get to where we really want to be we must first go somewhere we never had in mind!" - Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher