The Lamp and the Window

A traveller once stayed the night in a country inn at the edge of a forest. The room was small, the walls plain, and on the table beside the bed sat a single oil lamp. When he lit it, the window beside him filled with darkness and the lamp's flame appeared, doubled, hovering just beyond the glass. He spent the evening watching it, half-convinced another room existed on the other side of the wall.

In the morning, he opened the window. There was no room beyond it — only a path, a wood, and a low mountain in the distance. The flame he had watched all night had been his own. The light had been so close it had hidden the world.

We do this all our lives. The brighter the lamp inside us — our certainty, our pride, our grievance, our plan — the harder it is to see through the window. Our reflection fills the glass and we mistake it for the country beyond.

The cure is not to put out the lamp. A dark room helps no one. The cure is to remember to open the window every morning, to step outside, to let the path remind you that you are not the whole landscape.

Most of what we call wisdom is the practice of dimming our reflection long enough to see what is actually out there.