Riches and Poverty

Amidst a crowd of cheering admirers, the rich man and the poor man both set sail, each wishing the other a pleasant journey and a safe trip. The rich man had packed everything he could possibly ever need, and his resources weighed in at a hefty three hundred pounds, conveniently doubling as additional ballast for his sturdy boat.

"Nothing shall faze me," he said, "for I have prepared for every possible scenario I can think of. If I should encounter trying times, I shall have all I need to endure it!"

The poor man had likewise packed everything he could possibly ever need, but his resources weighed in at a simple twenty pounds, which he conveniently put on board the ship right next to his navigational equipment.

"I know that this is what I will need to survive," he said, "and that if I should encounter trying times, what I have is what I'll need, and what else more, I shall create with my own ingenuity as necessary."

So the two men went forth with their little boats and clean white sails. The journey would last for about two weeks, so the crowds proceeded with their lives until they would next hear news about the two mens' respective adventures.

They arrived within a few minutes of each other, and their boats looked like hell had grown fond of of them--tattered sails, patchmended holes and rotting wood carefully making its way across their bows. The rich man alighted first, and told his story.

"A storm came, and stayed with me for the entire journey. I was lucky to have all the things I'd prepared, for all of them came in handy. I have to say, though--there were many times when I found myself saying 'if only I had packed a frammerstan! A bourgenbot! A slaipardesh!' Somehow I managed to make it through, though. It was a grand thrill of a ride, at that."

The poor man came later, and likewise told his.

"A storm came, and I somehow managed to handle all the things that came at me with what meager resources I had prepared. I used a fork to fix my sail, a little cork to plug leaks, and built a desalinator to give me fresh water as I needed it. What a joy it is that I managed to make it through! I kept worrying that I was about to die, but kept finding that my worries were unfounded. Fate somehow was so kind to me that my crazy contraptions actually stood up to the challenge, whilst often I feared they would fail."

Having heard both mens' stories, the crowd then asked what they planned to do next. Interestingly, both men gave the same answer.

"This was a painful yet marvelous journey. I want to make sure nobody has to suffer through it the way I did, so I'm going to devote the next year to teaching others how I made it through." For the rich man, this meant telling them how each of his items came in handy, and what additional things they would need to pack with them should they encounter the same kinds of storms. For the poor man, this meant telling them how he improvised solutions to the things he'd encountered, and refining the contraptions he'd built for the journey into products that other people could use in the future.

So they did.

One year later, the students of both men decided to reenact their teachers' journey. Since both teachers had discovered new things that they'd needed for the trip, their students had each chosen to bring more resources. But since the poor man's students were equivalently poor, they could only afford to add a little more to their packs, while the rich man's students had plenty more to carry on board. After wishing each other a pleasant and safe journey, the students all set sail, with the same two-week time horizon.

Two hundred boats had set sail. Only one arrived. It looked just as haggard as the two that had hobbled into dock exactly a year ago. "There was a storm," its passenger recounted, "far worse than the last one. The rich man's students found that the things they had weren't adequate for what they encountered. The poor man's students found that they could try and make tools like their teacher had, but they had so few resources that what they built wasn't good enough to weather the storm."

"How did you survive?" the crowd asked.

"I learned from both teachers," he said. "I couldn't agree with either of them. The rich man seemed so fearful of the storm that he spent all his time telling us what to plan for. He thought that if he provided us with everything he had had and more, we would be safe. The poor man seemed like he wasn't scared of the storm at all, so happy for the inventions he had made and the many strokes of fortune in his own journey that he was confident we would be able to survive when the time came, even if we had little to work with."

Puzzled by this, the crowd urged him to continue.

"By fortune, one of the rich man's students decided not to do the trip at the last minute, and, knowing that I was set to sail with the poor man's students, decided to give me his boat and all the resources in it instead. So I sailed as a poor man in a rich man's boat. Even though the things that the rich man had told us to pack weren't enough on their own, I was still able to construct things out of them that helped me survive. I only wish the others could have done the same."

Saying this, the student limped away, to make preparations for mourning the loss of his brethren. The crowd was silent.