A Parable
Once upon a time there was a young man, who wanted to make magical images. He
went out and bought an image box, and he sat and listened to the wise men who
made magical images. They told him "you should not let your image box bake the
images, you should buy an oven and bake them yourself".
Now this was good advice, and the young man set about buying an oven. In the
land there were three oven makers: A****, B**** and C****. C**** was expert at
making image boxes, and indeed the young man has bought his image box from
C****, but C**** didn't really know how to make ovens.
A**** was a great and rich and powerful oven maker. He made ovens for the
wise men, and for princes and kings. But his ovens were very expensive, and if
you bought his ovens he insisted on a tribute payment every year. He was very
arrogant, and if there was a problem with his oven he would insist that the
problem was with the image box, or the image maker. The young man did not want
to be beholden to A****.
B**** was keen and had great ideas. He designed a very clever oven which was
neater and faster than any other. He allowed other artificers to create
accessories to the oven. B****'s ovens were very reasonably priced, and fitted
perfectly into the young man's kitchen. After trying B****'s oven the young man
was hooked, and happily bought one and started to use it to make magical images.
In this land the business of making image boxes was very competitive, and the
image box makers often replaced their image boxes with newer and better image
boxes. Many people bought the newer and better image boxes, the young man among
them. But then he found that the newer image recipes required some changes to
his oven.
The young man went to B****, and said "please can you make the changes to my
oven?"
And B**** said "No, I will not update your old oven. I am working on a
completely different oven design now, which will replace your whole kitchen, and
all the accessories you bought from the other artificers. It will have square
wheels, because round wheels are so last year. You will have to replace
your recipe books and your spice racks. But the images it produces will be
magical, I promise."
The young man asked "And when can I buy this?"
B**** replied "Verily, I do not know. For it is so difficult to produce such
a magical oven that I don't really know how to do it. All my elves have been
working very hard for many years, but they have not yet made it work. But when
it is finished it will be fit for princes and kings, and all the wise men and
all those who bought my old oven will throw the old one onto the scrap heap and
pay me lots of money for my new oven. And those silly enough to have bought new
image boxes will just have to wait, and then learn how to use a completely new
oven."
And the young man wept, because B**** had become just like A****, and he did
not know what to do.
© Questa Computing Ltd. 2005
Page last updated
23 July, 2010 07:51
|