There once was a simple man who lived his life in isolation. This was by his own accord, for he had seen the ugly side of humanity and only desired peace and joy through self-improvement, he tirelessly worked on himself everyday to reach nirvana.
In his first year, he didn’t struggle at all. Everything came so easy to him, it was like he was born for this life of painful deprivation. He reveled in the hurt, it was a joyous feeling. It made him stronger and he felt alive, a feeling he never experienced before.
His second year was the toughest, for through happenstance, the entire world succumbed into a plague. He was no longer fighting with his inside world, the outside world was in turmoil as well. Everyone went into isolation and so this man was no longer alone, the world had joined him. And because the world was now isolated too, he could wander around without being bothered, traveling through creaks and valleys until one fateful day he saw an injured baby deer, weeping alone beside a rose bush. The deer looked up at him with teary wet eyes, eagerly wanting affection and love from the man.
It’s beauty amazed him and to his astonishment, the deer clung onto him immediately. The man, by forces beyond him, was slowly being pulled out of isolation. He found a friend in this little innocent deer, which seemingly trusted him with all it’s heart. He made it his goal to nurture and grow this deer to full health, it was his biological imperative when seeing a baby in need. He would grow it to be independent and enlightened, like himself. And so he stopped his own development and focused all his energy into the deer, making sure all it’s needs were met, day after day.
They became very close and the man became the deer’s pseudo-parent, loving it unconditionally though with sternness, playing the good and bad parts as a mother and father would in their odd relationship.
And little by little, the deer recovered. First, the bright brownish color returned back to it’s fur. Then, it’s confidence. Before he knew it, the deer even grew a couple of inches taller. And once the deer’s posture was straight, he knew he had made significant progress.
This made the man so very happy. And so months passed and the man continued to ignore his own personal development, for the deer’s progress made him so very joyous. And the deer loved the attention, they only had each other throughout this period as it was in deep wintertime and the plague ravaged onwards, destroying the outside world.
Then one day, a terrible storm creeped in at night and interrupted the man and his deer’s lives. It was a nasty storm, the thunder was unforgiving. The man stayed calm through the storm, but the deer was incredibly fearful. The deer kept shaking and the man tried everything, but nothing would console it. The deer was getting flashbacks of hurt when it was a baby, the pain and destruction caused by others to it. It was traumatized. The man had to stand firm like a rock, in fear of adding to it’s emotional instability, even though he felt deeply for his friend and “child”. He had no idea what events transpired before he found it on that fateful day when they first met.
The deer, unable to withstand it’s emotions, first hid under a table and then ran out the door into the cold, it felt trapped inside the well-built and warm cottage. The man was helpless, he couldn’t stop the deer but knew it would come back eventually. The storm ended and the man waited and waited, for weeks on end, and the deer was nowhere to be found. He then suddenly spotted it along one of his walks and observed it from a distance. The deer looked fine, walking about and drinking from a pond. It felt like the deer had forgotten his old friend, but the man was happy to see it living, breathing and in good shape. He thought about pursuing it but decided to leave it alone, if it wanted to come back home, his doors were always open.
A few days later the deer showed up to the man’s home, but something had changed. The deer was less clingy and more independent and emotionless, the innocent and eager need of affection had disappeared. The deer came again the next day for a brief time and left again, still not showing any affection to it’s former caretaker. The man was saddened, while his intention was to make the deer strong and independent, he didn’t realize he would be forgotten. He lamented about his own progress, how he completely dismissed his own health to focus on the little deer, now with nothing to show for it.
As the weather started to warm up and the plague finally ended, the deer completely stopped coming. The man tried to go back to his normal routine, but always had the deer in the back of his mind. He always wondered if the deer was fine, if it needed his help. He remembered it’s teary innocent eyes looking up at him when he first found it, they were so broken and helpless. It felt like he lost a child. And so the man went back into isolation, forced to focus on his own development.
A year passed and the man saw something strange. He saw throught his binoculars, far in the distance, the same deer he nurtured to full health, walking along with another man. The deer followed this man unconditionally, always a step behind. The man taught the deer to be independent, yet it had another caretaker, he had been replaced. He observed the deer in secrecy, day after day, and noticed how devoted this deer was to the new caretaker, he wandered if it was in danger but that did not seem like the case. He saw in disbelief, wondering why the deer had left him. He wondered if it was something he lacked or if he had done something wrong.
Then the answer finally hit him. This was another lesson to learn in his path to enlightenment. He had forsaken his pursuit of wealth and learned to love outwardly, yet here he was trying to commodify his relationship with the deer, to make it his property.
This was a deer. It does what it has to for it’s survival, its motivations are it’s own regardless if they are right or wrong. The deer gave the man an opportunity to nurture it back to full health, a chance many do not get to experience. And in return, the man gave the deer a gift of unconditional love and affection, a feeling of safety.
The man understood then, that possessions can be of people and things, and they can possess your mind if you allow them to. After that day, the man vowed to always keep his doors open for the deer if it ever needed help and focused on his own journey of self-actualization and transcendence.
