The
Four Compass Directions
There can be many things that influence
how people act throughout life, but of them all, there are four that are crucial.
One of them is love, the other experience. The third, reason, and the fourth,
greed. Love builds a person, teaches him about the goodness of life. Experience
allows the person to look back on the path of life and see where he has been.
Experience prevents mistakes. Reason allows better decisions to be made about
the direction one wants to travel on the road of life; it allows goals to be reached
faster. But greed is a downfall. It occurs only when, even with reason and experience
and all those other things, one decides that it takes too long to reach a goal
or that one particular goal is not enough. A person then wants more and more from
life that life itself cannot give. When a person becomes saturated with greed,
love, experience and even the great quality of human wisdom cannot save him. Nothing
short of the Lord himself. Take this example:
There was once a man who had spent his
early life on the streets of the small town of Dunnesbury.
At an early age his relations had all died of one cause
or another, and therefore he had been left alone to
fend for himself. Back in those days, one couldnt
imagine a harder time than poor Amario. The days were
long and cold, the streets bleak and desolate to him.
Houses stood off to the sides filled with gay, merry
people celebrating for whatever reason, but he was all
alone. Surprisingly, the underpaid streetsweeper showed
up at the corner of the block, and by the end of midday
virtually every scrap of food had vanished from the
barren roads.
Within his pocket, however, Amario had
saved up an amount equal to three dollars worth in pesos---a
lot to carry around, but not quite a lot to spend. Around
his neck he wore a gold-gilded cross, the only reminder
of his early life with the exception of the old, worn-out
socks he wore on his feet. He portrayed quite a shocking
appearance---years of desperate poverty showed on his
torn cloth wrap he hung over his shoulders to shield
from the cold; underneath, the blemishes of famine creeped
forward upon the rungs where the rib-cage was supposed
to have been hidden. He was not quite alone in his hunger;
dogs doing a little better off than himself prowled
the streets at night, and on more than one occasion
he had been met by a savage, ravenous set of knifelike
canine teeth. However, he has reasoned that it must
have been for his lack of anything else but skin and
bone that drove away the dogs; he had even become unwanted
by the dogs, so to speak. While it was fortunate for
him that he was still alive, every day that passed strengthened
that one unmitigable fact that his life was without
purpose. He would never be anything, he would never
have a friend to keep him company on the dark, cold
nights in the town.
Life continued on barely until sometime
later, he decided that life had become worthless in
his state of despair. He had managed to acquire a new
set of outerwear that looked moderately decent for a
lower-class man, and in his depressed state of mind
had gone to the local bar to grab a few swigs or two.
He walked over to a table with all the other merry people,
and for the first time he cloudily understood why all
these people were making merry.
One of the men he met was a man named Carlos,
who sat rather ruggedly against a pine wood chair, and
whom Amario had seen fall back repeatedly. Everytime
he would lose his balance and fall down, the others
burst out in gay laughter, and soon the whole bar was
up in smiles and broke out into a frolic dance. Carlos
came over and put his hand around Amarios shoulder.
"Come on! Come over and join us! Well all---"
He fell back into the crowd as the others
fell down and got up and then fell down again, and Amario
decided that it was quite fun. So he joined the party.
Amario was quite a jolly person, for someone
who hadnt had much chance to converse among the
general crowd. To make even a more amiable audience,
he tokenly grabbed out his bag of pesos and spread about
a handful of its contents among the crowd. Everyone
truly did become good-natured after that, and after
that night, most of the men in the bar decided to become
Amarios good friends. Indeed, even Carlos wanted
to do something good for his newfound friend. He invited
Amario over to his house to stay until he could acquire
a better place, and Amario pleasantly agreed.
Even though Amario got to know Carlos quite
well, it wasnt until Carlos had left one day unexpectedly
that he finally found out what his friends position
had really been. Carlos had left a note along with a
small envelope on the table before he had left, and
later, Amario had found it and opened it. It instructed
him to take out the contents of the envelope and apply
it to good use to better his condition. It was a total
in paper bills equal to one hundred dollars. At the
sight of this, Amario silently exclaimed.
But there was also an accompanying letter.
It was also from Carlos, giving more rather specific
instructions. It told him that he could do whatever
he wanted to do to better his condition, but never to
forsake who he was. A commoner he was, and a commoner
he would always be. If you ever choose to do otherwise,
there would be severe moral consequences. The message
was then restated more firmly, almost as if it was a
warning. Amario took this to mean that it wouldnt
be keeping a promise if he did something otherwise and
that it was a breaking of a promise that was the "severe
moral consequence." Oh, well.
"Oh yes, a commoner, but a rich commoner!"
he shouted in joy. His mind had suddenly made a quick
association: Carlos had been no ordinary low-class bar
man; he was one of the more socially elite of this small
town, and luckily, he was one to have been made easily
merry that Amario had acquired this virtual fortune.
With some advice from his bar-mates, he learned of a
nearby town where there were plenty of opportunities.
Without looking back, he left town.
In another town, La Ciudad de Fernando,
Amario made his first appearance. Within that town,
surprisingly quite close by in fact, there was a kind
of social dysymmetry. It so happens that there was a
half of the town that were supportive of their appointee,
Fernando, and the other half of the town who were against
his plans for trying to calm this social unrest.
Fernando was a great man; in Amarios
eyes, the greatest man he had ever seen. He owned a
huge plot of land in the southern part of the city,
on which a great structure was built exclusively for
him and him only. His followers were rewarded with all
the necessary and unnecessary amenities of life there
could possibly be; wages were plentiful, not a poor
man in sight---at least on that side of the town. On
the northern side, however, Fernandos opponents
had set up a miniature kingdom of their own, ruled by
a common man who was in fact Fernandos brother,
but no one knew of that fact; conditions were less pleasurable
and more like his home town of Dunnesbury, it seemed.
However, a good living could easily be achieved, and
all the necessities of life were easily gained if needed.
There were few but contentedly happy people living there,
compared with the many but regulated and confined people
of the South. Both sides, at first, seemed equally propitious.
When he first entered the town, he could
barely take a second step before he was stopped and
looked over by one of the appointed middlemen from both
sides. The view and the opportunities he could have
in this city quickly overwhelmed him; he wanted to go
on and take his hundred dollars worth of pesos
and do something with it, as his old friend Carlos had
told him. But this man before him was like a gnat; he
constantly bothered him with remarks on the way he carried
himself.
"What do you want?" Amario asked,
quite impatiently.
"Just wanting to look you over,"
the middleman said. "You do realize that this is
not much of a welcoming city."
Amario grew even more impatient and irritated.
"Yes, sir, I am well informed. Now, please, can
I go along with my business?"
The middleman looked at him curiously.
"Then you dont realize," he said quite
jeeringly as Amario took it. "This city is divided
into two sides. One is with the great Fernando; the
other, against him. All of our citizens are either with
him or against him except me, that is. Ive been
appointed so I dont have to choose sides. However,
you must, if you do so desire to make an honest living
here."
"Take sides? Must I choose now?"
Amario asked.
"Before you move any further. Fernandos
law."
So Amario thought. Should he live under
Fernando, with the luxurious households and extravagant
wages, or against all of that, with the common men,
of which he had once been? Should he or should he not?
Finally, after a quick judgment, Amario
spoke. "With him. I will make a decent living there.
Who should think that I would want to live among the
common men?" he spoke rather upwardly, as if in
a high position. He pompously strutted along past the
middleman and took a right; into Fernandos land
he walked.
For a while, as a home was made out to
him and a job given him, Amario made a decent living,
as he was determined to do. He remembered Carloss
instructions, telling his to use the money to better
his condition. And what a betterment it was! Every day,
he lived lusciously in luxury, wading in it until the
waves came in and washed ashore money from all directions.
All the people under Fernando respected him, but always
for some reason kept a bit of distance from him. They
were too immersed in their own affairs. And so was he,
immersed in the sudden fortunate turn in his life, that
he failed to see the sudden tidal wave come, the great
wave that would soon drown him in his own luxury. More
was better.
Near the winter season, there was news
that Fernandos brother had arrived in town. He
was very eager to see his brother, indeed, and was a
little lax with managing the town. It so happened that
one day, Amario happened to be on the street looking
at the different shops that lined the sides, when just
by chance Fernando had also been walking down the same
street. He walked forward and shook Fernandos
hand with courteous respect; Fernando was used to having
his hand shook many times. They stood and conversed
for quite a while in the middle of the street; Amarios
interesting personality kept Fernando there for quite
a while, even when he said he might have to go to meet
his brother, who was later supposed to be coming down
this same street to meet him.
Out of respect and also to strengthen their
interests, Amario gave Fernando a small portion of what
he had earned that week. Fernando accepted the offer;
he would later add it to make up for his other expenses.
They stood talking for a little while longer, until
Fernando was called by one of his hands that his brother
was coming soon to join him. Amario thought that he
had made a fine impression on Fernando; with Fernandos
type of character, Amario knew that later on he could
even expect a raise, among other things.
Amario, quite content with his good deeds
done for the day, stood back and whistled while the
hand came forward and Fernando walked up to his brother
to greet him. At first, Amario could not see who Fernandos
brother was, but Fernando and he were talking about
the pleasurable conversation that he had undertaken
to have with another man, whom he will surely shortly
meet. And so Amario saw his old friend Carlos, and as
Carlos stepped forward and saw him, he looked at him
with quite a stare.
"Look at all this I have made for
myself with what you have given me! Look at me! My life
has become grand, certainly better than it had been
back there in Dunnesbury," Amario boasted. He had
looked around for Fernandos brother, since the
hand had said he would be coming along soon for Fernando
and his brother to meet. "Hey, wheres your
brother, Fernando? Id certainly like to meet him,"
he said, in his renowned friendly manner that he thought
would bend something else his way.
Fernando stopped, and he walked forward
to Amario. "This is my brother," he said,
pointing to Carlos. "And by the way, since we know
each other quite well, Id like to share with you
something that Ive only shared with a few others
I have complete trust in."
"Whats that?"
"You know the northern side of town?
My brother owns it all. Together, we both own this whole
great town of mine, La Ciudad de Fernando. I should
also say La Ciudad de Carlos for the northern part,
but it already has a proper name."
Amario stood there, looking at his old
friend Carlos, with a rather composed but secretive
expression Amario had never seen before. But still,
he could tell why Carlos looked that way. It was the
end of him. There was only one more thing to ask to
secure Fates finality:
"And what name is that?"
The sentence had already been drawn. "Dunnesbury,"
Carlos told him.
Everything Amario had, he lost. He had
strived for so much in greed that now it was even a far
greater calamity that he had lost everything than before
when he was without adequate clothing and only scrap meat
for the dogs. He was sent back to Dunnesbury; if that was
all, he should have been glad. But, on Carloss ordering,
he was sent to a building just outside the towns limits
where all were sent there to stay, but none would ever leave.
The commoners from Dunnesbury and the noblemen of Fernandos
city escorted him into a quite adequately sized room, in
which he was thankful for being in after seeing all the
cramped, foul cells lining the hallway as he first entered.
It was rather dark and for some reason, putrid; his escorts
left him alone on the room and shut the door. There was
only one small window in the ceiling and an even smaller
one on the door itself; there were no other exits to the
outside world. Just like before. Dark and cold, desolate,
barren, alone.
So when the movement among the shadows
began to come forward, Amario realized that it would
have been much better if he had been alone. At least
out on the open streets he had had a chance to live.
In here, there wasnt much of a chance. The haggard,
brutish men straggled forward into the dim light from
the ceiling, just as a pack of dogs. Amarios thoughts
wandered uncertainly; it would have been much better
if they were a pack of stray dogs, but they werent
dogs. They were more comparable to wolves. Wolves that
didnt care whether one had much meat on his person;
all they cared for was the fact that he had betrayed
the common society. The sentence was the same for all
of Fernandos men who happened to cross the line
into Carloss land, and for all people who had
forsaken their God-given way of life. It was the same
for those who desired greed over contentment. Because
see, in this cell, no one followed Fernandos law
or Carloss law or anyone elses law. They
were the law; they were the judges, the jury, the outcome.
And so the middleman was right when he
said that this town was not much of a welcoming city.
Amario had never known it before until then that Dunnesbury
was actually owned and governed by Fernandos brother,
Carlos. The background to all this: The North and South
had been divided, and to end social unrest, a truce
was called in the form of a treaty. This treaty was
made by both Fernando and Carlos stating that all men
are to retain their rightful positions; upperclassmen
under Fernando, and lowerclassmen under Carlos. Because
there were some men who had rebelled against Fernandos
position, they had been allowed to create their own
state under Carlos, but because of that, they became
forever commoners. And because of that, no one could
ever be allowed to leave their given position. That
was the law.
It was too bad that Dunnesbury had broken
off from Fernandos city. If it hadnt, there
would have been some money to clean up these cells here.
There would have been some money to build larger windows.
And so there was no one out in the hall that could see
what was going on behind that door; nobody could see
Amario; the pack of wolves was furtive as always. Curse
Dunnesbury! There could have been larger windows! But
one thing he failed to do was to curse himself, for
it was himself who had brought it all upon himself.
Greed had taken its course, and greed had won.
There are four things that influence how
people act: love, experience, reason, greed. Love was
denied him; experience was cruel. Reason was stunted,
and for that fact, greed found a way to overrule. This
crucial imbalance in life exists upon all; it is just
a matter of personal choice which way on the road of
life one wants to travel. It is like a compass: if one
follows ones path, they may be certain never to
stray. As long as one does not set out in the direction
of greed, one is fine. All people should keep a constant
eye on their compasses; for the moment the eye wanders,
all may become lost. If Amario could only see it as
so, he had the experience of few. Reason allowed him
to survive as long as he did. And for love, he had the
love of God himself. If the love of God isnt enough,
what is? If life is not enough, if one is greedy for
more, there is always death. And there, greed overcomes
all.
|