MindThe Beginner

Once upon a time there was a little songbird. Born in a typical Dutch forest at the edge of some fields. His first months of life were spent in spring and an abundance of food was all he knew.

Then one day he heard the older birds talk about oncoming winter. “What is winter?” he asked. Winter was a time of year that everything went silent, all was white and food was scarce. Also, it was cold, very very cold.

The other birds planned to head south before winter came. But this sounded like a dreadful amount of work. “We have to fly thousands of miles?! Are you crazy?!” the little bird said.

“Suit yourself, but we warned you, winter is coming.” And a few weeks later the older birds indeed went south. Our songbird was now all alone.

Every day grew a little bit colder and eventually our songbird did see the truth in what the older birds said. “You know what, I’ll just take off, and see how far I get”.

No sooner said than done or our little songbird was airborne. But because if was so cold, his wings began to ice up. And just a few miles in, he crash landed into a field.

Flying south was no longer an option and our little songbird felt very miserable indeed.

Sitting there in a snowdrift he could slowly feel himself freeze and he knew the end was near. “If only I had listened to the older birds”.

Then, out of nowhere, a big cow appeared. A huge animal in black and white, and our little songbird was terrified. He might be stepped upon. Although that would be a quicker end.

However, the cow did not step on our little songbird, but instead dumped a huge load of warm shit on him. And although it sounds quite disgusting, it saved our bird.

It smelled a bit strange, but it was nice and warm. And soon our little songbird was singing at the top of his little voice. O, ignorant little bird.

Little did he know, his singing attracted a cat, who was having a hard time finding food. “That bird does sound very tasty” the cat thought and soon he did find our little songbird.

With an elegant move, the cat plucked our little songbird out of the shitpile and ate him up.

Morale of the story

Now you might be wondering why I’m telling you this story. It was told to me a few days ago by my professor in Asian Religions and it’s apparently a Buddhist joke.

There are three lessons to be learned from our little songbird:

1. Someone who dumps a load of shit on you isn’t necessarily your enemy.
2. Someone who helps you out of a shitty situation isn’t always your friend.
3. When you’re in deep shit, it is sometimes best to keep quiet.