A Pound of Flesh
In the midst of trying to cop a nap this afternoon, an old, long forgotten story wormed its way into my conciousness. A story that my father used to tell me a long time ago, along with all the other tales that he deemed fit for learning. I cannot remember it precisely, nor am I sure that I have the exact details right, but I’ll tell it in my own words, as I know it.
There was once a man who claimed to be the most pious and devoted man on Earth. He prayed night and day and constantly spoke to his God in his quest to get closer to him, asking, “How can I be a better servant to you?”
One day, his God finally replied his plea. He spoke to the man in a dream and said, “I want you to get me a pound of human flesh, to prove that you truly love me.”
The man woke from his dream and began a fervent search for anyone who would give him a pound of flesh to offer up to his God. Armed with a knife, he roamed the streets asking, “Who will give me a pound of his flesh?”
People thought he was crazy and avoided him and by the third day of search, the man was desperate. As he stood in an alleyway in an attempt to gain some respite, he heard a cracked old voice speak to him. “What’s the matter, sir?” The man looked down to see a beggar, homeless and weak, who had been watching him.
“I need a pound of flesh,” the man’s words tumbled over themselves. “I need a pound of human flesh to show God how much I love him.”
“All right.” The beggar said, “Give me your knife.”
Unable to believe his luck, the man handed over his knife and the beggar placed it with care on his thigh where his meagre flesh was meatiest. With some difficulty, he sliced off a large piece of his meat. “Here,” he gasped, handing it to the man.
The man took it, trembling with thanks, and was about to leave when the beggar stopped him. “Wait,” he called out. “How do you know God wants a pound of flesh from a thigh? Maybe he wants an arm.” And before the man could stop him, the beggar had sliced flesh from his upper arm. “And just in case, you’d better take some from my other arm.” By now, the beggar was bleeding so profusely, that there was no way to staunch the flow.
The man’s arms were full with all the flesh he was trying to gather, and in his haste, he ran back out into the streets and shouted to the sky, “I have your flesh, God!” And God appeared to greet him. But here, the man received a great shock because standing at God’s right hand, was the beggar, dead yet newly healed, and glowing with heavenly light.
“I have your flesh,” the man repeated. “Now will you believe how much I love you?”
But God shook his head and replied, “You deeply disappointed me, my son. For if you truly loved me, why wouldn’t you give me flesh that was your own? Instead, it is this man who sacrificed himself for me who truly loves me and it is he who will stay by my side forevermore.”
All right, admittedly that wasn’t the best retelling ever, but you get the general idea. This story is disturbing to me on so many levels. Firstly, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to tell your kid before she falls asleep! I mean, slicing off bits of your meat is not exactly the nicest and most soothing image to lie in the dark and contemplate and I think I had nightmares about it for awhile.
Secondly, who in his right mind would sit there cutting off not just one, but countless pieces of himself for a man he doesn’t know just for the heck of it?! I can only believe that the beggar must have been mad in some way, or just really, really out of it. Or, you know, schizophrenic. Yeah, definitely schizophrenic.
But at the highest level, I think it disturbed me so much because of this notion of “sacrifice”. Because when I think about it, I don’t believe that there is such a thing as sacrifice at all. Michelle Kwan, my favourite skater of all time was once asked how she felt about having to sacrifice all her time to train for her sport. Her reply was, very simply, that when you want something and you put aside other things to go for the thing that you want, you can’t really consider it a sacrifice at all. And I think that answer earned her more respect than her actual skating did.
Because at the heart of it, all humans are selfish. It’s a humbling thought, but to accept it is to accept one of the greatest universal truths, for in true human nature, the rejection of this idea is a selfishness in itself.
We all want to see ourselves as altruistic benefactors at some point in our lives and so we make these choices which we call “sacrifice” where we put something or someone else ahead of the thing we want.
Only, we’re not doing that at all.
In denying ourselves something in lieu of something else, that’s selfishness right there because we personally believe that the alternative will lead to better consequences, and ultimately, it is better consequences that we want. There is no “giving up” anything, because you get something in return with every choice you make. It’s Newton’s third law in practise all over again. You only ever give something up if you can have something better in return. Think about altruistic suicide and monks who have burned themselves to death because they believed that people would take notice and stand up for the cause that these very monks believed in.
Sure, I’ve made decisions in my life that have pained me, but only because I knew, or at least believed, that in the long run, the results would be better for me. You have to make choices to get what you want in life and this will always entail leaving something behind. So to me, there is no real sacrifice. There is only what you do or do not do. There is no such thing as holiness, only a choice to an end that will ultimately benefit you in some way, even if it’s just making someone else feel better so that the altruism reflects on you.
What then of the beggar? Admittedly, he didn’t know the man and he was still doing something to help him. Well, I can only conclude that this was because he believed that he was in dire straits and that he had nothing to lose. The alternative could only, in his eyes, be better than his situation at that point. And if you think about it, he did end up standing at God’s right hand, or wherever it is that they stand nowadays.
He, at least, made the right choice.
And sometimes, we don’t. We get it wrong and we end up regretting the choices that we make. There is no way to circumvent this because not all “sacrifice” pays off, not even those made in the greatest leaps of faith.
Instead, we can only hope with all our selfishness that after we have cleaved our flesh, splitting skin, incising bloody muscle and severing the arteries that are our lifeblood, we don’t stare in horror at the cold, truthful gleam of the white bone and decide that we want our pound of flesh back.
There was once a man who claimed to be the most pious and devoted man on Earth. He prayed night and day and constantly spoke to his God in his quest to get closer to him, asking, “How can I be a better servant to you?”
One day, his God finally replied his plea. He spoke to the man in a dream and said, “I want you to get me a pound of human flesh, to prove that you truly love me.”
The man woke from his dream and began a fervent search for anyone who would give him a pound of flesh to offer up to his God. Armed with a knife, he roamed the streets asking, “Who will give me a pound of his flesh?”
People thought he was crazy and avoided him and by the third day of search, the man was desperate. As he stood in an alleyway in an attempt to gain some respite, he heard a cracked old voice speak to him. “What’s the matter, sir?” The man looked down to see a beggar, homeless and weak, who had been watching him.
“I need a pound of flesh,” the man’s words tumbled over themselves. “I need a pound of human flesh to show God how much I love him.”
“All right.” The beggar said, “Give me your knife.”
Unable to believe his luck, the man handed over his knife and the beggar placed it with care on his thigh where his meagre flesh was meatiest. With some difficulty, he sliced off a large piece of his meat. “Here,” he gasped, handing it to the man.
The man took it, trembling with thanks, and was about to leave when the beggar stopped him. “Wait,” he called out. “How do you know God wants a pound of flesh from a thigh? Maybe he wants an arm.” And before the man could stop him, the beggar had sliced flesh from his upper arm. “And just in case, you’d better take some from my other arm.” By now, the beggar was bleeding so profusely, that there was no way to staunch the flow.
The man’s arms were full with all the flesh he was trying to gather, and in his haste, he ran back out into the streets and shouted to the sky, “I have your flesh, God!” And God appeared to greet him. But here, the man received a great shock because standing at God’s right hand, was the beggar, dead yet newly healed, and glowing with heavenly light.
“I have your flesh,” the man repeated. “Now will you believe how much I love you?”
But God shook his head and replied, “You deeply disappointed me, my son. For if you truly loved me, why wouldn’t you give me flesh that was your own? Instead, it is this man who sacrificed himself for me who truly loves me and it is he who will stay by my side forevermore.”
All right, admittedly that wasn’t the best retelling ever, but you get the general idea. This story is disturbing to me on so many levels. Firstly, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to tell your kid before she falls asleep! I mean, slicing off bits of your meat is not exactly the nicest and most soothing image to lie in the dark and contemplate and I think I had nightmares about it for awhile.
Secondly, who in his right mind would sit there cutting off not just one, but countless pieces of himself for a man he doesn’t know just for the heck of it?! I can only believe that the beggar must have been mad in some way, or just really, really out of it. Or, you know, schizophrenic. Yeah, definitely schizophrenic.
But at the highest level, I think it disturbed me so much because of this notion of “sacrifice”. Because when I think about it, I don’t believe that there is such a thing as sacrifice at all. Michelle Kwan, my favourite skater of all time was once asked how she felt about having to sacrifice all her time to train for her sport. Her reply was, very simply, that when you want something and you put aside other things to go for the thing that you want, you can’t really consider it a sacrifice at all. And I think that answer earned her more respect than her actual skating did.
Because at the heart of it, all humans are selfish. It’s a humbling thought, but to accept it is to accept one of the greatest universal truths, for in true human nature, the rejection of this idea is a selfishness in itself.
We all want to see ourselves as altruistic benefactors at some point in our lives and so we make these choices which we call “sacrifice” where we put something or someone else ahead of the thing we want.
Only, we’re not doing that at all.
In denying ourselves something in lieu of something else, that’s selfishness right there because we personally believe that the alternative will lead to better consequences, and ultimately, it is better consequences that we want. There is no “giving up” anything, because you get something in return with every choice you make. It’s Newton’s third law in practise all over again. You only ever give something up if you can have something better in return. Think about altruistic suicide and monks who have burned themselves to death because they believed that people would take notice and stand up for the cause that these very monks believed in.
Sure, I’ve made decisions in my life that have pained me, but only because I knew, or at least believed, that in the long run, the results would be better for me. You have to make choices to get what you want in life and this will always entail leaving something behind. So to me, there is no real sacrifice. There is only what you do or do not do. There is no such thing as holiness, only a choice to an end that will ultimately benefit you in some way, even if it’s just making someone else feel better so that the altruism reflects on you.
What then of the beggar? Admittedly, he didn’t know the man and he was still doing something to help him. Well, I can only conclude that this was because he believed that he was in dire straits and that he had nothing to lose. The alternative could only, in his eyes, be better than his situation at that point. And if you think about it, he did end up standing at God’s right hand, or wherever it is that they stand nowadays.
He, at least, made the right choice.
And sometimes, we don’t. We get it wrong and we end up regretting the choices that we make. There is no way to circumvent this because not all “sacrifice” pays off, not even those made in the greatest leaps of faith.
Instead, we can only hope with all our selfishness that after we have cleaved our flesh, splitting skin, incising bloody muscle and severing the arteries that are our lifeblood, we don’t stare in horror at the cold, truthful gleam of the white bone and decide that we want our pound of flesh back.
She said, she said at 2:39 pm
2 Comments:
What was that all about, some sort of dark and twisted tale your father used to tell? Did he not think that it would scar you emotionally for the rest of your life? I hope you don't pass that story on to any children you may have.
It didn't scar me at all. Sure I was a little scared when I was young but I grew out of it. In fact, I think it's a great story for those who are old enough to understand. I don't think it's twisted either,it's just vivid metaphorically and it taught me many things. I suppose it depends on what you want to see from it and how you process it. It worked out okay for me.
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