Thursday, November 22, 2012

Bit by Bit - Chapter 3, Part 7

Trey Smith


When Kung-wen Hsuan saw the Commander of the Right, he was startled and said, "What kind of man is this? How did he come to be footless? Was it Heaven? Or was it man?"

"It was Heaven, not man," said the commander. "When Heaven gave me life, it saw to it that I would be one-footed. Men's looks are given to them. So I know this was the work of Heaven and not of man. The swamp pheasant has to walk ten paces for one peck and a hundred paces for one drink, but it doesn't want to be kept in a cage. Though you treat it like a king, its spirit won't be content."

~ Burton Watson translation ~
Each person is born with a deformity of some kind. For some people, it's a physical abnormality. For others, it may be mental, psychological or emotional. And some of us have a few of each!

The more people I meet as I travel through life, the more I think that "normal" is much like "perfection" -- it doesn't actually exist.

To view the Index page for this series, go here.

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