Second Birth
The young elephant who breaks away from the herd makes a choice. It’s a choice that is quite like a second birth. Because it has all the drama, the sweat, the pain and the thrill of being born. From where he is, the lush green jungle holds the promise of unlimited food and freedom. It holds the promise of a LIFE.
Free from the rules of the herd.
The vast verdant expanse calls out to the young elephant. Come out and enjoy the abundance we have to offer. You can’t see it from behind the trunks and legs of your elders. Their safety is like a prison grill. Don’t remain caught in it. Instead, come and play with us. We will give you freedom. And life.
But this freedom also means bouts of terrifying loneliness, attacks from wily predators, hunters’ traps and capricious forces of nature.
In the end what the young elephant makes of his second birth is entirely up to him. If he gets scared and rushes back to safety of his herd, he will live to a ripe old age, like millions of other elephants before him.
But if he persists, soldiers on on the path of freedom, then he becomes something else. Not quite an elephant. Not quite the opposite of an elephant.
But life itself.
Free from the rules of the herd.
The vast verdant expanse calls out to the young elephant. Come out and enjoy the abundance we have to offer. You can’t see it from behind the trunks and legs of your elders. Their safety is like a prison grill. Don’t remain caught in it. Instead, come and play with us. We will give you freedom. And life.
But this freedom also means bouts of terrifying loneliness, attacks from wily predators, hunters’ traps and capricious forces of nature.
In the end what the young elephant makes of his second birth is entirely up to him. If he gets scared and rushes back to safety of his herd, he will live to a ripe old age, like millions of other elephants before him.
But if he persists, soldiers on on the path of freedom, then he becomes something else. Not quite an elephant. Not quite the opposite of an elephant.
But life itself.
Sometimes, elephants go astray, break from the herd just for the heck of it. To defy the herd, to experience something new.
ReplyDeleteThe mark of a truly original being though, is one who seeks out the new experiences, who wilfully re-invents himself. Someone who's life's ambition is re-birth. And for whom, straying from the herd is not an accident.
Such elephants change matter. They shape it. Sculpt it, transform it, and the mutants that result are not just re-birth, but genesis.
The O.