“I read so many books, but I forgot most of them. But then what’s the point of reading? ”
This was the question a pupil once asked his Master.
The Master didn’t answer at that moment. After a few days, however, while he and the young pupil were sitting by a river, he said he was thirsty and asked the boy to get some water from him using an old filthy sieve that was there on the ground.
The pupil moved, because he knew it was a request without any logic.
However, he couldn’t contradict his own Master and, when he got the filter, he began to do this absurd task. Every time he was drowning the sieve in the river to pull some water to take to his Master, he couldn’t even take a step towards him because there wasn’t even a drop left in the sieve.
He tried and tried dozens of times but, as he tried to run faster from the shore to his Master, the water kept going through all the holes in the sieve and got lost along the way.
Exhausted, he sat next to the Master and said: “I can’t fetch water with that filter. Forgive me Master, it is impossible and I failed in my task.”
“No – the old man replied smiling – you have not failed. Look at the filter it’s like new now. Water, filtering through its holes cleaned it.”
“When you read books – the old Master continued – you are like the sieve and they are like the water of the river.”
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t hold in your memory all the water they make you flow, because books will anyway, with their ideas, emotions, feelings, knowledge, truth that you will find between the pages, clean your mind and spirit, and you they will make you a better, renewed person. That’s the point of reading.”
Have a good read everyone.