by Daniel Quinn
And for a brief moment, his legs wobbling and all his muscles shaking with exertion, this foolhardy cockroach held the entire weight of the mountain on his back. Then, of course, he collapsed and was instantly squashed as thin as a leaf.
Abel, still shivering uncontrollably, stared at his father dumbly, and at last Adam went on.
“You’re shaking just the way the cockroach was shaking under the weight of the mountain. Your muscles are protesting the hopeless task you’ve given them, the task of denying to the cold the tiny space your body encompasses. It can’t be done, and your muscles know it. If you don’t make way, you will be crushed. In either case, the cold will have the space you’re trying to defend. It has already entered into everything in these hills—into the ground, into the trees, into the birds and animals and insects, even into me. You alone are suffering because you alone are trying to push back this mighty force with the strength of your puny muscles.
“The mountain wasn’t his enemy, but the cockroach made it into one and so was crushed. The cold isn’t your enemy either but it will crush you as though it were an enemy if you don’t make way.”
“I don’t know how,” Abel chattered.
“Relax your muscles,” his father replied. “Stop struggling to keep the cold out. Let it flow through your body. Give it the space it will have in any case. Then you’ll see that it isn’t malevolent or hostile—or indeed anything that is thinking of you at all.”
Abel did as his father directed and, to his surprise, found that he was once again comfortable. “The cold isn’t as cold as I thought it was,” he remarked.
Adam shrugged. “The mountain was only heavy because the cockroach tried to hold it on his back.”
Adam and his son soon resumed their journey, and, as they were nearing camp, Adam said, “There’s almost always a way to move alongside the power of the elements. Never oppose them directly as though they were enemies to be overcome. If you do, you’ll be crushed like an egg under a boulder.”
GAZELLE ON A STRING
The place by the marsh was at the edge of a wide savannah, and one day Adam took his son into the grasses to stalk the gazelles that fed there. For many hours the hunters followed the herd, carefully staying downwind of it. Abel asked his father what they were waiting for, but Adam gave him a signal that said: Be still and watch.
After several more hours had passed, Adam made another sign that said: Be alert now. At that moment, a lion bounded out of the grass and into the midst of the gazelles, bringing one down quickly while the rest fled in all directions.
When it was all over, Adam asked Abel what he had seen. “The lion killed a gazelle,” the boy said.
“Yes,” Adam replied. “But we’re not here to study the lion, since it’s not our prey. It’s the gazelles we’re interested in. What did you learn about them?” Abel considered this for a time, but beyond the fact that they had fled when the lion appeared, he could think of nothing to say.
“You were absorbed in the spectacle of the kill,” Adam said. “But once the lion made its appearance, the kill was all but inevitable and of no interest. You should have been watching and thinking about the rest of the herd. First and most obvious, they abandoned their fallen companion without a moment’s hesitation.” Abel protested that this was how all herd animals behave.
“That’s not so,” Adam replied. “A band of baboons might well have turned on the lion and torn it to shreds. However, that’s not the important point. Come on, let’s see if we can find where the gazelles have reassembled.”
When they had once again located the grazing herd, Adam signaled to his son to watch the gazelles, not him. Adam then rose up out of the grass and with a roar plunged into the middle of the startled herd. Suddenly the air was filled with gazelles bounding off in all directions. But Abel was surprised to see that their flight ended as quickly as it had begun. Within moments the gazelles were calmly grazing again as if nothing had happened.
“The gazelles don’t have to run to the ends of the earth to escape a lion,” his father explained. “A single burst of speed will carry them beyond pursuit whether the lion makes its kill or not. If the lion makes its kill, further pursuit is unnecessary, and if it misses its kill, further pursuit is pointless, because the lion has no hope of outmatching the gazelles’ speed once they’re alerted. Either way, a single bound is as good as a thousand once the gazelles have evaded the lion’s first blow.”
“But if the lion misses its kill, won’t it stalk the gazelles one by one?” Abel asked.
“It may,” Adam replied. “But what of it? Do you think the gazelles should run to the ends of the earth every time a lion is in the neighborhood? What would they find there except another lion? There’s no point in running to the ends of the earth when a single burst of speed will put you out of reach of any predator.”
Abel thought about this for a while, then shook his head. “I understand what you’ve said, but I don’t see how it helps us, since we’re not lions.”
“It helps because we’re not lions.”
But Abel just shook his head again.
“Look,” Adam said, “the gazelles’ flight is designed to protect it from the lion, which will ordinarily not trouble itself to stalk its prey one by one. It prefers to attack the herd, where its chances of success are greater.
“But we’re not lions, and the gazelles’ burst of speed can’t defeat our greater cunning and patience. Watch me now, but stay well behind.”
Adam began to stalk one of the gazelles from the still scattered herd. As he approached it from the rear, the gazelle raised its head and looked uneasily from side to side, and Adam froze in midstep until the gazelle began grazing again. When Adam was some twenty paces away, the gazelle again looked up, and Adam again froze in his tracks. The gazelle studied the man for some moments and then, seeing no harm in him, peacefully returned to its feeding. But when Adam was ten paces away, the gazelle, perhaps disturbed by some noise, trotted off uncertainly to a distance of about thirty paces.
Adam circled to get behind the gazelle and once more began to stalk it, pausing whenever it raised its head. In a few minutes he was close enough to reach out and touch it. He laid his hand gently on its rump and spoke a few words, and the startled gazelle bounded out of sight.
“Now you try it,” Adam told his son. “And remember this: When the gazelle looks up, you’re not a hunter but a tree.”
Abel then selected a gazelle and began to stalk it, but with little of his father’s skill. Again and again he signaled his approach when he was still fifty paces away, and the gazelle moved off uneasily. Adam saw that Abel was gradually herding the gazelle into the marshland near their camp, where it would be even more nervous than before. Still he said nothing and dropped farther and farther behind until the boy was out of sight. He then cut a long strip of bark from a tree and settled down to fashion a length of twine from the fiber on its underside.
Before long Abel returned, and Adam could see from his face that he hadn’t been successful in stalking his gazelle.
“What you need,” Adam said, “is to have a bit of twine around the gazelle’s neck. Then it will be yours.”
Abel laughed ruefully and asked how he was supposed to get near enough to the gazelle to loop a bit of twine around its neck.
“That’s not what I mean,” Adam said. “Here, I’ll show you.” Adam tied one end of the cord around his waist and handed the other to his son. “I’m the gazelle, you’re the stalker. The cord is what binds us together. Now I’m going off to graze, and every time I become aware that you’re holding the other end of the cord, I’ll let you know.”
Adam then moved off, and when he reached the end of the cord he felt a tug at his waist. He looked around suspiciously, and said to Abel, “Who are you and why are you stalking me?”
“I’m a hunter,” Abel replied.
Adam laughed. “You’re supposed to be a tree, not a hunter. And don’t look me in the eye when I turn around.”
Adam then moved off again but immediately felt a tug at his waist. He stopped and looked around suspiciously, but Abel was doing his best to look like a tree. “That’s better,” Adam said. “But you must be ready to move when I move or I’ll feel your hand at the other end of the cord every time.”
Once again Adam moved off. For a few moments the tension on the cord was steady and slight, but then he felt it go slack at his waist. “What’s this? Someone must be creeping up on me!”
He turned and saw that Abel was indeed a pace closer than before.
“You have to keep a steady tension on the cord, Abel. Otherwise you won’t know what I’m going to do at any moment—though I’ll know what you’re doing. If the cord goes slack, I know you must be gaining on me.”
Adam moved off again and this time felt no tug or slackening at his waist. “Good,” he said as he continued to walk forward. “Now we’re bound together, hunter and hunted. But the cord that binds us together is not just the thing in your hand. Let your eyes and ears and skin be the cord as well, and let it tell you my thoughts. Let it tell you when I’m going to pause to browse, when I’m going to move away again, and when I catch sight of a succulent clump of grass to one side or another.”
Soon Abel was following his father’s movements smoothly and easily without signaling his presence, and Adam said, “Now, very patiently, you can begin working yourself closer to me. Remember that, because your cord is around me, I’m already yours. You need only draw me in like a fish, hand over hand. But be careful not to change the tension on the cord.”
And before long Abel was close enough to reach out and touch his father’s shoulder.
By now it was nearly dark, and Adam and his son turned back toward their camp. For a while they walked in silence, then Abel said, “Still, I’m not sure what I’ve learned. I know the feeling in the cord around your waist and could follow you easily now. But I’ll never have a cord around a gazelle’s neck to follow.”
“You will if the gazelle belongs to you,” Adam replied. “Your path and the gazelle’s are part of a web endlessly woven in the hands of the god. If the gazelle is yours, you and it will be tied together as surely as you and I were. But I can’t tell you how to find that thread. You’ll know it when it’s in your hands.”
FINDING AN ACCOMMODATION WITH THE SEA
Once, when Adam and his family were camped by the river that flows into the sea, Adam let his son lead in tracking a boar. When the track disappeared into thick underbrush, Abel circled the thicket only to find that it fronted the river, which the boar had evidently crossed. Abel led his father across the river, where he hoped to pick up the boar’s trail again. But the shores of the river were rocky, and Abel could find no trace of the boar’s passing.
Adam sat down with his back against a tree while Abel dashed up and down the water’s edge and poked here and there along the inland trails. An endless line of ants were marching past Adam’s tree, and, as he waited for his son to pick up the boar’s trail, he amused himself by watching them making their way in the dust.
Abel, angry and frustrated by his failure to find the lost trail, soon came over to where his father was sitting and glared down at him impatiently. Adam, paying his son no attention, laid a leaf in the way of the ants and, when a few had clambered up onto it, set it to one side of their path. The ants swarmed off the leaf in confusion and began circling in all directions in a frantic effort to find their mysteriously missing companions.
Abel could contain his impatience no longer, and he said, “Why are you playing with these stupid ants when our boar is getting farther and farther away?”
Adam laughed and said, “These stupid ants were trying to teach you the proper way to find a lost trail. But since you were too furious to watch, you missed the whole thing and the ants are already back in line. Watch, and I’ll show you again.”
This time Adam picked up a single ant and set it to one side of the trail.
As Abel watched, he realized that the movements which a moment before had seemed frantic and random were in fact full of purpose and method. The ant walked for a bit in a straight line, paused, then swung in an arc back to its point of departure, where it hesitated again before extending the line in the other direction and making a still wider arc back to the other side of the line. In this way, its circle of search grew steadily, arc after arc, until it intersected the line of marching ants. Then the lost worker resumed its place in line without missing a step.
“Make the river the baseline of your search,” Adam told his son. “Start with a small arc from upriver to downriver. When you come back to the river, take another step upriver, then circle back downriver. Eventually your trail and the boar’s will have to cross.”
Following the example of the ants, Abel soon raised the boar’s trail, and the two hunters were on their way again. The trail led steadily on toward the sea and clearer ground, so that Adam and Abel quickly made up the time they’d lost and were not far behind the boar. After making sure of their weapons, they hurried on. But before they had a chance to use them, they found themselves standing on the shore of the sea, where, to their surprise, they saw their quarry swimming placidly away.
“Now that’s a thing I’ve never seen,” Adam said, but Abel asked, “Aren’t we going in after it?”
Adam shook his head. “You’ll never catch it in the water,” he said. “And what would you do with it if you did?” But Abel was determined to have the boar he’d tracked for so many hours and he rushed into the sea.
Adam smiled and sat down on the shore to wait. Before long, however, he heard his son crying for help a hundred yards from shore. Looking out to sea, Adam saw Abel standing in water no higher than his chest.
“What’s the matter?” Adam shouted.
“I can’t move!” Abel shouted back. “The water is dragging me out to sea!”
As Adam waded out to where his son was standing, he felt the growing pressure of an undertow clutch his legs. Coming abreast of Abel, he said, “Well, now we’re both here in the grip of the elements. Shall we struggle and drown or stand here and starve to death?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” Abel replied. “I felt that if I let go, I would be swept out to sea.”
“And so you would have been,” Adam replied. “I’ve told you that there’s almost always a way to flow alongside the elements. But that doesn’t mean turning your life over to them like a leaf in the wind. It doesn’t mean collapsing helplessly and letting the elements do what they will with you.”
Then Adam asked, “Where is it you want to go?”
“Toward shore,” Abel replied.
“And have you tried to go toward shore? Show me.”
Abel leaned into the water but he said, “I’m afraid to lift my feet. If I lose my footing, I’ll be swept away.”
Adam nodded thoughtfully. “You’re doing exactly what I told you not to do. You’re opposing this flow of water directly; you’re assaulting it like an enemy. Earlier today, when the boar’s tracks disappeared into a thicket, you didn’t oppose that obstacle directly. You didn’t plunge into the thicket; you went around it, knowing that it’s senseless to assault an impassable spot just because it happens to be in front of you. There was bound to be a passable spot to one side or the other, and you went looking for it. Use the same sense here that you used when you faced the thicket.”
After a few moments of thought, Abel began walking along parallel to the shore, and Adam followed. After a few hundred yards they found a place where the pull of the undertow began to slacken, and little by little they made their way back to dry land.
As they turned toward camp, Abel asked his father if he thought the boar had been carried out to sea.
“Possibly,” Adam replied. “But not for the reason you might have been. It would never occur to the boar to oppose the undertow directly, because it would never occur to it that the undertow was an enemy bent on its destruction. It would try to go around it like any othe
r obstacle. All the same, it may have been carried out to sea.”
Later Adam said, “Sometimes there’s no way to move alongside the elements and survive, or the way may be blocked. Then it’s time to open yourself to death in the same way you opened yourself to the cold in the little hills. After that, if you survive, you will never again have to be afraid of death, just as now you never will again have to be afraid of the cold.”
THE WEB WOVEN ENDLESSLY
When it was near the time for Abel to become a man, Adam said to him: “You know that I’ve taught you many things: to give a stone a cutting edge, to set a spear point solidly, to lay a cunning snare, to make a warm tent, to spin strong twine from bark, and so on. The results of these activities are all useful, but they are also all destined for the trash heap in the end. The dust beneath our feet is full of the discarded products of such ingenuity.
“My gift to you is not the knowledge of making useful trash, for one may live well without such knowledge. But there is other knowledge without which no one can live well, and this is my gift to you. The name of this knowledge is wisdom. It is the gift my father gave to me and his father gave to him. Remember it for yourself and for your children.”
Then Adam said: “The first gift of wisdom is the gift of seeing beneath the surface of things and calling them by their true names. Until now you have named things as they have seemed, not knowing that they have other names that come nearer the truth. This is because children see only the surface of things. When you come to a land where the people marvel at the wisdom of their children, know that you are in a land of fools.
“The child looks at you, at me, at your mother and calls us men and women. But the child sees only our appearance, for we are not men and women, we are deer. The flesh that grows upon our bones is the flesh of deer, for it is made from the flesh of deer we have eaten. The eyes that move in our heads are the eyes of deer, and we look at the world in their stead and see what they might have seen. The fire of life that once burned in the deer now burns in us, and we live their lives and walk in their tracks across the hand of god.