"Long ago, in a faraway land, there
was a strange type of mold that affected the grain in the fields. The
king knew that if his people ate this grain, they would lose their mind
and go mad. He discussed the problem with his chief adviser, and they
decided to use the grain in the storehouses while trying to find a
remedy for the afflicted grain. Time passed and the storehouses were
empty, but still no remedy was found. The king decided that it would be
better to feed his people the grain that would make them lose their
mind than to let them die of starvation.
"I too will eat of this grain," he told his adviser,
"so that I will be like my people --lost in madness. From that shared place, I will be able to lead them."
"But what of me?" said the adviser,
"I will advise you, but you will not understand me."
"You too must eat of the grain," said the king,
"but there is one more thing. Before
we eat this grain, I will order all my people to put a mark on their
forehead. Every morning, they must look at their reflection and see
this mark and ask themselves who they really are."
How tragic if they forgot to look at their reflections...
From Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment:
"...He dreamt that the whole world was
condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from
the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen.
Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these
microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them
became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves
so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these
sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific
conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages,
whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited
and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the
truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the
breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and
could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know
whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of
senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another,
but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the
ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other,
stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell
was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why
they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most
ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own
ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was
abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep
together, but at once began on something quite different from what they
had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other.
There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were
involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and
further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a
pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to
renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had
heard their words and their voices."
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