The Boy and his Clay

A boy sat on his stool sculpting a clay dinosaur one morning. The rays of the sun beamed through the window across the table as the cool breeze of a new day pervaded the air. “Ahh... This is beautiful!” the boy exclaimed raising his work in the air, inspecting every side of his artwork, marveling at what his young hands could do. With much fervor and enthusiasm, he began starting another one, another one, and another one until he made six replicas of the dinosaur, consuming his last bar of clay dough.

“I must make more and more, and more and more while everything I do is still consistently perfect. If I make even more, I would then have some to give away!” the child explained to his mother when he was asking for more bars of clay. That afternoon, his mother bought several bars of clay for her child to continue his work. She brought the same brand of clay dough with the same color for her child to make the next batch of replicas to be just like the previous ones. He spent the whole day, doing his creations ‘til the wee hours of the night and waking up minutes before the dawn of the next day. He spent equal amount of effort and craftsmanship just to retain the same exquisiteness and detail of each sculpture as his previous works.

One day, he decided to give away all those that he had made. He gave one to his classmate, another to their neighbor, and some more pieces to people he didn’t even know. He gave everyone who would find time to talk and accept his little gift. He trusted every person he gave, assuming everyone would take care of the lump of earth with the same effort that he exerted in creating them. Days after, the boy saw a lump of clay similar to the color of the one he made his creations with being played by another child in the neighborhood playground. The boy approached the child and said, “Isn’t that the dinosaur sculpture I gave you?”

“Yes. This is it.”, the child from the neighborhood answered in a matter of fact tone.

“But why is it shaped into another form?” he boy asked

“Well, it is after all a lump of clay. No one would enjoy playing it without ruining the previous work done unto it...”, he explained. Then he added, “After all, you gave it away. It’s mine now and I can do anything I want with it. ”




Photo from http://www.jeremyriad.com