A parable

So I came across an interesting post in one of the China blogs I regularly follow. The posting was from a blogger known as Acosta, supposedly (for I have to take others words on this) one of China's most popular young bloggers. The essence of the post is to relate a short story where a man wanders through the desert dying of thirst. In the distance he sess a lone tree and struggles to make his way to it. Upon reaching the spot he finds nothing elsd around and, in a nearly dehydrated state of frenzy, the man starts to dig wildly. Remarkably, the man finds a jug of water. On the jug is a piece of paper that reads, if you pour the water into this hole, a spring will pop out of the ground. The man struggles with what to do but at the end decides to pour the water away--and the spring does indeed come.

An act of faith. An act of giving away what you have in order to attain some hoped for bounty. At some moments, I like to think this is what I have done, having emptied out the secure jug of academia into the sands of time in the hopes that something will spring forth. Of course, I can't just sit around and wait for water to pour forth from the ground. I know that ain't going to happen. But I like to think that I have at least set out the conditions for such an event to occur.

http://cnreviews.com/blogs/the-desert-spring_20100201.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CnReviews+%28CN+Reviews%29