One day, a stone lying on the side of the road turned to the sage, who sat down to rest, with a question:
- Oh, sage! What can I do to change the world around me? I have been lying here for three hundred years and I know perfectly how to grow moss, how to grow into the ground so that you are not washed away by the spring waters, I know many languages, I have heard the speeches of the smartest men who talked among themselves and consider myself a philosopher. I thought for a long time. But even after three hundred years of thinking, I have not found a way to change the world around me. I tried hundreds of methods, developed hundreds of algorithms, but none of them helped me change the world. Around me, everything is the same as three hundred years ago. What to do?
The sage listened to the stone philosopher, shook his head, and said:
- Well, I'll give you some advice. You are lying near a busy road. Roll out on it, become a traveler.
Hearing this answer, the stone cried out:
“You are mocking me, O cruel sage!” After all, when I roll out onto the road, I will cease to be myself - a lying stone! And I will have to recalculate my favorite algorithms again!
The sage grinned at such speeches and, without saying a word, kicked the philosopher and threw him onto the road.
And a boy was just walking along the road. He saw an interesting pebble and picked it up. So the stone philosopher began a new life. He was a hammer, he was used to hammer nails and crack nuts, he flew as a formidable weapon of the proletariat, heated in fire, drowned in water. They built houses with it, paved streets with it, they wrote novels and composed poems about it. He got what he wanted. The world around him has changed. But all he did was roll out onto the road, although not without the help of a sage.
And in the end, the stone ended up on the table of one aspiring writer, to whom he told his story. Although they took it for business, to press down manuscripts, and not to tell tales. These chatty stones are simply creepy.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru