There is a less famous story about two stones. I was told this story to understand the moral of it, but as always, I took the message in my way. Indeed, I took the moral in completely other way and my boss was actually lost with the thought in the middle of our discussion. So here is how it goes and I leave it for you to decide which message to take.
*For an unbiased naming (1, 2 or A, B of First, Second) I am going to call the two stones J and T.
Since I am narrating the story, I had named it “Two Stones and an Artist”
Long time ago in a deep forest, there were two huge stones lying next to each other. For long time no one crossed them and the only things they saw were birds, animals and trees. Many days came and went. The two stones accompanied each other for long time. But that was soon going to change. One sunny day an Artist was on a search of inspiration in that forest. The Artist was a master and was well known for his creativity. He spotted these two stones and suddenly got inspired and confused. He was inspired by the natural beauty and the size of the stones and was confused because there were two of them. He thought of making a masterpiece but who will be chosen.
The Artist with loads of thoughts first went to *stone J. He said, “Dear Friend, I am a great artist from a famous place. I was in search of a medium to make my masterpiece and you could help me. I am going to put punch, nails, notch, hammer and chisel on you for a very long time. I am also going to break pieces out of you. You may feel humiliated and hurt. But remember my friend J that finally I am going to convert you in a master piece, an idol which everyone will not just praise but will also worship. So for such fame are you ready to take the hardship?” The stone responded,” Dear friend thanks for making such a wonderful offer, but I have my own harmony with nature and can’t accept your idea.”
Looking at the next Stone T, the artist now approach stone T and said,” Dear Friend, I am a great artist from a famous place. I was in search of a medium to make my masterpiece and you could help me. I am going to put punch, nails, notch, hammer and chisel on you for a very long time. I am also going to break pieces out of you. You may feel humiliated and hurt. But remember my friend J that finally I am going to convert you in a master piece, an idol which everyone will not just praise but will also worship. Your friend J had refused my offer and now it is your chance. Remember that only after hardship you can change yourself into something better. So for such fame are you ready to take the little hitting from me?” The Stone T was very happy to note that he has a good chance to become a master piece and he has to bare the hitting and bashing the by the artist. He agreed to Artist request and the work started.
After getting the approval from Stone T, the Artist starts his work and aligned all his tools. Swiftly, Hammer after hammer and chisel after chisel the Stone T was in a process of conversion. Stone J saw the whole process and was the only observer of the process. The Artist on the other hand was focused and was putting his best efforts to make his masterpiece. With lot of efforts and time, the fastidious work of the artist on Stone T, it was finally over and Stone T was indeed a masterpiece now. The Artist announced the end of his work and left the place after thanking the Stone T for his support as a resource.
Many years then, The Artist visited the same jungle and was astonished to saw a mob around the place he made his master piece Stone T. In the brouhaha of the crowd he catches the words beautiful, divine, astonishing etc…feeling proud of self, he stepped into what now looks like a temple. In the center, it was Stone T being worshiped by many and the offerings were splendid. Honey, milk, gold, silver, curd, flowers, turmeric and other goodies were bestowed on it. In fact the Stone T was flooded with viewers and the Artist himself couldn’t reach even near his own masterpiece. With admiration and dignity, the Artist walked out. He was still imagining the huge amount of honey, milk, gold and flowers just flowing around Stone T.
Some more steps ahead he saw another mob. This time he was more curious. He soon realized that it was Stone J. The people were breaking coconuts on it and the place smelled foul. The people were really harsh and the coconut breaking had resulted in depletion of Stone J. He left the place.
Now, here comes the moral part. I would like you to first think of relating the story by you being the Stone J, Stone T and Artist. Please read on and you are welcome to comment and share your own view.
Moral 1
The moral of the story is, if you want to achieve success you have to let your bosses, teachers and seniors hurt you so that you should be changed into a Piece admired by many. Everyone has to go through a difficult hardship to convert themselves and in the process if a person disgust you or if you feel humiliated, you should think of it as a passing time to become a noble one. Someone has to hurt you to change you in a master. We can see it happening around us every day and many people are trying to change us into something good and equally many times we don’t take is positively.
The beauty lies in the eyes of the observer. Observers were too foolish and gave more importance to the form and shape than the actual content. The stone remains a stone and even if you immerse a stone in honey or milk for years, nothing can penetrate it. Same way we can indulge ourselves in hardship and luxuries but nothing can reach our soul. To change yourself, you have to change the substance in you rather than changing the way you look. Don’t let others decide what you should be because they don’t know your true nature and what you really want.
Moral 3
The true characteristic of stone is to be hard and a stone has to play his role in nature. The stone usage to break coconut was much proper use than simply bestowing flowers and honey on it. It is our discriminative nature which differentiates jobs and because of this we want to change all stones into models. We bestow all our faith and goodness toward someone who simply appear good and doesn’t consider those quite people who do the needful. People who are social workers, people who clean our toilets, people who clean our drainage lines, people who work at the grass root level without whom we cannot imaging our life. But we value a dance number or some show act more than the other useful things. Eventually we filter out things based on non-value character.
Don’t forget the people who had made you what you are. We are all work of many good Artists. Starting from our Kindergarten our relatives, parents and teachers had shaped us in what we are. Many of us are playing our parts in between Stone J and Stone T. Whoever we are we should never let other surround us and separate our Artists from us. Our senior’s efforts were equally important in making us what we are. It shouldn’t happen that we indulge so much in goodies that the barrier doesn’t allow our real well wishers to reach us. (The Artist was unable to reach his own masterpiece)
Moral 5
There are no heroes in this story. All three of them played their part and certainly all three of them are equally important for the story. So there is nothing good or bad.
