Once upon a time there lived one leaf. One day a strong wind tore him from the tree, and he was carried up and down. A little sparrow, who had just hatched this year, asked him: “Why did you fall from the tree?”
“I didn’t fall, I was just tired of hanging on it,” answered the leaf.
“Where are you flying?” the curious sparrow asked again.
“Where I want, I fly. If I want, I’ll fly up, if I want, I’ll fly down. I’m a free leaf,” said the leaf. It must be said that he was too proud and arrogant to admit that he could not fly and that he was completely subject to external influences, for example, the wind, although perhaps he really thought so.
When the wind died down a little and the leaf fell into the stream, the sparrow asked him again: “Why did you stop flying and fell into the water and where are you going now?”
“I didn’t fall anywhere,” the leaf answered offendedly, “I’m just tired of flying and wanted to swim, but I swim wherever I want, because I’m a free leaf and I decide for myself what to do.”
“Why don’t you swim in the other direction?” asked the little sparrow.
“How many times can I explain to you, since I don’t swim there, it means I don’t want to, because I only do what I want,” the leaf answered irritably and swam further down the stream.
A few days later, the sparrow had already learned to fly and, making its third flight, saw its old friend - a leaf, but it had changed so much that the chick did not immediately recognize it. “Hello leaf,” he squeaked, “how are you? Why did you turn yellow, who did this to you?”
“Nobody did anything to me, I just wanted to change my color, so I turned yellow,” answered the leaf.
Sparrow believed the leaf and after this incident began to consider leaves to be higher beings, because he could not understand how one could fly without wings and swim without legs, much less change color at will.
But then autumn came, and leaves began to fly from the trees more and more often, but the sparrow never saw them flying against the wind, and when they fell into the stream, none of them swam against the current, unless a very strong wind pushed them. And he never saw any leaf remain green and “want” not to change its color. He matured and gained life experience, and at the same time he changed his attitude towards the leaves, living in the illusion of complacency that they control their lives.
And he also learned that there are other creatures who consider themselves independent of anything - these are people. Their behavior and life in general depend on sudden impulses of emotions, feelings and desires that come from nowhere and carry them to somewhere unknown and no one, with the exception of a few, tries to fight them and the few who have conquered them. And they also consider people whose wind of desires and feelings blows in a different direction as strange, only because they are carried in a different direction than them.
He could not understand why they behave this way, why they, so weak, but potentially so strong, like to console themselves with a fairy tale about their omnipotence instead of trying to resist the gusts of the “winds” or even learn to control them, because people are creatures to whom this is subject, who themselves can decide in which direction they should wander across the boundless waters of life.
And the sparrow decided that it was better to admit that the wind can blow you away and change the intended path, but be able to resist it, than to say that the wind has no power over you and you are flying exactly where you want when it carries you in the opposite direction.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru