THE PARABLE OF THE FOUR STONES
Once upon a time there were four stones. One of marble, another limestone, a third silicon and a diamond.
One fine morning the marble stone declared, "Someday a stonecutter will find me and shape me into something beautiful and worthy. Maybe an elegant fireplace!"
The diamond snickered, "I think you'll end up as part of a floor and get walked all over."
Then the limestone piped up, "Maybe someday I'll be put to a great purpose too."
But the diamond sneered, "Not likely. You'll probably end up as a sidewalk. You'll be stepped on."
Finally, the silicon stone said wistfully, "I may be used to protect fine optical instruments used by the finest scientific minds in the world!"
The diamond guffawed, "You're crazy. You'll probably end up inside a 3-minute egg timer used in downscale versions of Scrabble!"
The diamonds' comments so frustrated the other stones' dreams that they all cried out in unison: "And what do you think you'll become?"
The diamond smirked. "Can't you see? I'm already a large diamond. I'm a big, beautiful stone -- not dull and common like you three. I will become the treasure of a beautiful princess and be loved and admired evermore, because everyone knows that diamonds are forever!"
The three other stones chose not to answer because they knew what the diamond said was probably true.
Then, one day, stonecutters arrived. They cut the marble and shipped it to a big, faraway city. The limestone too was cut and sent on to Florida. The silicon thy sent to Massachusetts. But when they found the diamond they jumped up and danced, for the stone was large and looked flawless.
The marble became part of the foyer for the entranceway to the tallest, most magnificent building in the world, a building that thrust up over one mile into the sky. Tens of millions of people from all over the world came to marvel at the building and walked in wonder and awe over its beautiful, shining marble floor.
The limestone was ground and made part of the cement foundation that supported the world's first manned interplanetary spaceship with a crew of brave Americans ready to establish the first colony on Mars.
The silicon was fashioned into a new type of microchip that became an integral part of the most advanced supercomputer ever built. It developed sentience three months after start-up and in less than a year helped mankind harness the power of antigravity.
But what of the diamond?
It was cut and polished and sold, to an overweight, overbearing, perpetually perspiring, backwoods bred Arkansas TV evangelist who preached of sacrifice and sin while cutting political deals under the table, bedding ex-Penthouse Pets, and financing gunrunners in absentia between vicious thugs in the Golden Triangle of Asia.
He proudly wore the stone on his fleshy pinky. (Somehow, the diamond, however, seemed to have lost its luster.)
The End |
