The Choice

Sunlight splashes in transparent water and scatters golden sparks over the surface of shimmering waves. The river bank covered with warm sand welcomes your bare feet and invites for strolling, dancing by the wind songs, jumping up and following the white clouds in the sky. Summer! A breath-taking mixture of blue, yellow and green tints composes the total mood to walk and catch the pleasure of the magnificent season. Your mind is mostly free but inquisitive at the same time. Each day is open for little expeditions and discoveries, asking questions and finding answers.

The powerful river usually brings many shells to its banks during the summer months. Most are damaged and empty but from time to time there occurs the one which is alive and has a mussel in it. This shell is tightly closed as the mussel is holding the cover from inside. You want to see it much. What if your curiosity is too strong and irresistible? What if you cannot wait to see the hidden thing? The fastest solution here is to take a nearby stick and open the shell by force. It means killing for the sake of your urgent interest. Does it seem easy for you? Would you regret it later?

Another way can be much longer. You may first put the shell under the sun. Are you ready to wait for the result? The mussel will become stuffy with the time and then it will little by little open the shell by itself. Just use some strategy and you may see it. But do not touch the shell or it will be tightly closed again. To open it afterwards seems even fussier than before. The matter is if you have some tolerance for that. Can you rely on your being patient enough?

Now there is the final choice. You have seen the mussel inside but what's next? Will you bring the shell back to the water? Or will you leave it lying on the hot sand? If it gradually dries out there, is this a fact of principal importance for you? After all, your curiosity has been already satisfied. You may further proceed along the sandy bank and search for other river gifts there. There are a great many and they are looking so mysteriously attractive …

You will enjoy walking along the river further and further, observing summer scenes and listening to the unique sounds of the environment. Stay at the riverside till the air becomes cooler with evening breeze and gnats start to circle around. Watch the horizon gradually changing colors from rosy to violet, the sun giving way to the moon, stars emerging one by one and making the sable velvet of the sky embroidered with silver. Perceive the night darkness pouring out like ink and dying the world into black. The beautiful varieties of nature look like quintessence of this life’s kindness and vice, sorrow and elation, dismay and delight.

Almost every day we should make some choice, one or the other, should face problems and invent solutions. Sometimes we may go the way which does not seem obvious, safe or reasonable. But what way is true? Reasoning about the truth is like reasoning about heaven's providence. Where does it come from, why does it often leave us? Few people can give definitive answers. We can just get a chance of following the right path in case we are lucky enough of course. While acting sometimes in haste, sometimes in stress, simply linger a little and reflect. Often a couple of forehanded arguments may destroy dozens of motiveless ideas in our heads. Hereafter act thoughtfully please.