As I’ve mentioned many times—too many times?—I love proverbs, aphorisms, Zen koans, and paradoxes. If you share this love, you may be interested in my new book, Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives. It’s a collection of the Secrets of Adulthood I’ve learned over the years—usually the hard way! 

 

If this description intrigues you, you can pre-order the book and learn more at happiercast.com/secrets. Pre-orders really boost the fate of the book, so if you pre-order, I very much appreciate it.

 

Along the same lines, I also love traditional fables, parables, folk tales, and any kind of teaching story, and I have a huge collection that I’ve gathered over the years.

 

For instance, in earlier episodes of “A Little Happier,” I’ve re-told many famous teaching stories, such as the haunting story about the appointment in Samarra, the story of the greedy monkey, the story of the man with the crowded and messy house, and the parable of the growing heap. 

 

Here’s a traditional teaching story that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It has many variations, so I’ve written my own version. I’ll call this story “The Villagers and the Crocodile.”

 

Once upon a time, there was a well-ordered little village by a wide, beautiful river. The villagers depended on the river for its water and its fish, and they often crossed the river to visit places on the other side. People would gather on the riverbank, sharing news and conversation as they went about their business.  

 

Life there was peaceful, until a massive, cunning crocodile appeared.

 

At first, the villagers caught a few ominous glimpses of it, but they hoped it would just go away quickly.

 

Then the silent, sly crocodile struck. It snatched away Margaret, an older woman who was walking slowly and with difficulty along the river bank. “Well, of course a crocodile could catch Margaret,” the villagers reassured themselves. “She was very old and slow.” They breathed a sigh of relief. Now, the crocodile would be satisfied and go away.

 

But the crocodile wasn’t satisfied. A week later, it caught Peter, a strong, young farmer. As it happened, this Peter was a quarrelsome man, and several villagers said to each other, “Well, you know, it’s not so terrible that Peter is gone. He was a real nuisance, a bad neighbor. But surely the crocodile’s appetite will be satisfied after eating a big fellow like him. Now it will go.” 

 

So the villagers were dismayed when a week or so later, the crocodile acted again, when it caught an entire family as they were crossing the river in a boat. “Well, that family wasn’t from here,” the villagers told themselves. “They just arrived a few years ago, so it’s really no loss to our village. Now that the crocodile has eaten all six of them, surely it will have had enough, and it will stop.”

 

But the crocodile didn’t stop. The pattern emerged. The crocodile would hide and wait for a week or so, and everyone would hope that at last, it had eaten enough or had gone away. But then some villager would be forced by necessity to go to the river to fish or fetch water or try to cross, and the crocodile would drag them into the water to their deaths.

 

The villagers were terrified. The threat of this crocodile meant they had no peace. They couldn’t work. They couldn’t plan for the future. They had no idea who among them or when one of them would be attacked.

 

They no longer gathered on the riverbank for pleasant conversation. Instead, each crept to the river at odd times, hoping to pass unnoticed, each hoping that someone else would become the crocodile’s prey. Gardens withered from lack of water. The weekly market was abandoned as fewer and fewer people remained to buy and sell their wares.

 

But while the villagers recognized the threat of the crocodile, they didn’t work together to find a way to deal with him. They didn’t set a trap, or establish a protective force on the riverbank, or unite to fight him.

 

Instead, they each told themselves that, for whatever reason, they wouldn’t be the next victim, and the crocodile would take someone else instead. “The crocodile hasn’t come after me yet,” each villager would reassure themselves. “Obviously, it’s not interested in eating me. I’m not the type of person that is its prey. I’m safe, and soon, the crocodile will have eaten enough, and it will be satisfied and stop. Or it will go away, back to wherever it came from. Or someone else will figure out a way to stop it.” 

 

But the weeks passed, and fewer and fewer villagers remained. They grew more and more suspicious of each other—each hoping that the others would be next victims. 

 

Finally just a handful of villagers remained, and they came together in the village square. “We’ve got to do something,” they agreed. “We’ve all been so convinced that we wouldn’t be the next victims that we haven’t banded together to stop this crocodile. But it’s not stopping! Let’s figure out a way to end this terror!” 

 

But by then, so few villagers remained that it was too late. After its many easy feasts, the crocodile was so strong and well-fed that they couldn’t mount a defense against it.

 

One by one, the last of the villagers disappeared. They’d each assumed that they would never be the prey. 

 

Now, what is the moral of the story of “The Villagers and the Crocodile?”

 

Here are some possibilities:

 

·        When evil threatens, we must unite against it or fall separately; or

 

·        By choosing to ignore the wrongs done to others, we make it more likely for those wrongs turned on us; or

 

·        Don’t assume that evil-doers will be satisfied or disappear instead of choosing to continue in their evil ways; or

 

·        A society that discounts the suffering of its weakest members ultimately weakens itself; or

 

·        It’s risky to assume that we’re insulated from an unpredictable evil-doer’s destruction 

 

What do you think?