2012-08-15, 08:12 PM (This post was last modified: 2012-08-17, 02:20 PM by Chew.)
-Not my stories- (I only do the translations)
The Chained Elephant
When I was a little boy I loved the circus, and what I loved the most about the circus were the elephants.
Shortly after, I knew most people liked the elephants as much as I did.
During the feature, the huge animal made deployment of his weight, height and colossal strenght... but after his act and after a while before returning to the scenario, the elephant was tied only by a chain that held one of his legs to a little stake driven into the ground.
Nonetheless, the stake was only a little piece of wood only nailed to a few inches into the ground. And even if the chain was big enough, it seems obvious to me that the elephant could just tear apart the stake and run away.
The mystery is evident:
Why does he stay there?
Why doesn't he run?
When I was five or six years old I still trust in old men wisedom.
Then I asked to a teacher, to a father or even an uncle about the mystery of the elephant. Some of them explained me that the elephant doesn't escape because he's tamed.
Then I asked the obvious question...
If it is tamed, why does it need the chain?
I don't remember getting a logical answer.
With time I forgot about the elephant and the stake, and I only remembered about it when I stumble with other people that asked themselves the same question.
A few years ago, with some luck, I met this wise enough person to found the answer about it:
"The circus elephant doesn't escape, because he has been bound to a stake since he was very small."
I closed my eyes and imagined the newly born elephant tied to the stake.
I'm sure in that very moment the poor little elephant pulled, pushed and sweat trying to get off the the stake. And even with his all efforts he couldn't make it.
I swear he fell asleep exhausted and in the next morning he tried again, and so on...
Until one, a terrible day for his life, the animal accepted his impotence and resign to his destiny.
This huge and powerful elephant we see at the circus becaus he thinks - poor of him- that he can't.
He has in his memory his impotence, his impotence that he felt on that day when he born.
And the worst of all he has never questioned that memory again.
He never ... never... tried to test his strength ever again...
We all go wandering around the world, tied to hundreds of stakes, and they take away our freedom...
conditioned to a memory that "I couldn't, I can't and I will never can't"
The only way for you to know, is to try again and this time putting all your heart on it.
-Jorge Bucay
Disclaimer:
It would be awesome if anyone can put some feedback on this, mainly on grammar.
