| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: 'Draw straws!'
So we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew
what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down.
The water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt around
among the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist which
gave me no response--and if it had I should not have known it,
I let it go with such a frightened suddenness.
The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled
there, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news.
Some of us knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might
possibly be resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: supposing at first, the wise man had been able to distinguish what he knew
and did not know, and that he knew the one and did not know the other, and
to recognize a similar faculty of discernment in others, there would
certainly have been a great advantage in being wise; for then we should
never have made a mistake, but have passed through life the unerring guides
of ourselves and of those who are under us; and we should not have
attempted to do what we did not know, but we should have found out those
who knew, and have handed the business over to them and trusted in them;
nor should we have allowed those who were under us to do anything which
they were not likely to do well; and they would be likely to do well just
that of which they had knowledge; and the house or state which was ordered
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: The Labourer and the Nightingale
A Labourer lay listening to a Nightingale's song throughout
the summer night. So pleased was he with it that the next night
he set a trap for it and captured it. "Now that I have caught
thee," he cried, "thou shalt always sing to me."
"We Nightingales never sing in a cage." said the bird.
"Then I'll eat thee." said the Labourer. "I have always heard
say that a nightingale on toast is dainty morsel."
"Nay, kill me not," said the Nightingale; "but let me free,
and I'll tell thee three things far better worth than my poor
body." The Labourer let him loose, and he flew up to a branch of
Aesop's Fables |
