The Man Who Didn't Like The Sun

The man hated the bright burning thing in the sky. It hovered over him all day long, no matter where he went. He hated the Sun's harsh light, the heat it created and the shadows it cast on the earth around him.He felt like the sun was stealing something from him, separating him from things when what he craved was unity.

At least at night everything looks the same, he thought. hat's why he liked the darkness. The Sun had become his enemy.

One day, unable to stand it any longer, he decided to dig a hole to protect himself from the intolerable rays of sunlight. His skin, which had been burned a deep brown, began to turn white again, and the shadows of day ceased to annoy him. But then, sitting in his hole, he realized that the sun continued to flood his hiding place with light from above, and that his shelter was even brighter than the land outside.

He went back to work and had soon dug himself a tunnel and a cave. And there he finally found protection from the Sun. He spent years in his hole, meditating in solitude, in the coolness of the dark where the Sun never penetrated. Up on the surface other men grew food and warmed themselves in the heat of the all-giving star. They saw the Sun as a good and protecting God. The Sun was their ally as they learned to tame its extremes. They lived through the seasons, one after the other.

All were thankful for the Sun's presence, all except for the man who wanted to avoid the light and the contrasts it created. In the end the poor hermit perished in his cave, in darkness, in the calmness and unity of the shadows, but desperate and alone.

And after he died the people didn't even have to dig a grave for him.

It was already there...

Moral of the Story

Accepting people's differences, living with others and their strange habits and sometimes incomprehensible behaviour, can be difficult. We are often tempted to retreat like a hermit into the calmness of home, into the shadows. But life is composed of diversity, of exchange and of change. When you cut yourself off from your friends, your neighbours and your community, you also lose a part of yourself.