A Sufi Story.
There was once a great tribe who lived in a valley between two mountains—one tall and snow-capped, the other low and cratered. The people of this tribe had a saying:
“When you can stand to the south, with Nostrodos to the west and Gustravas to the east… discern them correctly, but know them as one… you will have true knowledge.”
One peculiarity about this tribe was that they had amongst them a group called the Foogutoes, which roughly translated meant “the Fixers.”
The Foogutoes were an odd bunch. In most matters they were useless, except for one remarkable gift: whenever they encountered a problem, they could not help but take it apart. They saw mechanisms where others saw routine, causes where others felt meanings, and once they understood how something worked, they could always fix it.
As the Foogutoes accumulated knowledge, they were able to fix problems faster and faster, and their reputation quickly spread. Soon everyone in the tribe wanted to meet a Foogutoe and hear what they had to say.
This carried on for some time until the Foogutoes became arrogant and said to the Elders:
“We should be leading the tribe! In fact, if we were in charge, we would be able to fix more things… even the ones you think don’t need fixing.”
The Elders had long feared this day would come. They replied, carefully, as they had discussed many times before:
“Blessed Fixers, we are grateful for your gift — it has saved us more than once. However, you know only the mechanics of living, not the art of it. If you were to lead the tribe, you would make life so easy it would lead to our ruin.”
The Foogutoes were furious.
They had always believed that if they fixed enough things, the Elders would step down and let them lead. When they learned the Elders had no such plans, they thought of them as arrogant cowards.
“We’ll start our own tribe!” the Foogutoes declared.
And so they did.
The Elders solemnly watched them go, but said nothing.
It was not long before the Foogutoes became one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world. At their height, they even solved all of mankind’s problems. There was no pain, no doubt, no unfulfilled desire. Every system was perfectly optimized. There wasn’t even a single wasted movement.
Everything appeared to be solved—everything but one very important question. In their obsession with fixing things, the Foogutoes had never looked at themselves. And by solving everything, like an errant thread in a magnificent tapestry, a single question mockingly danced in their faces:
Who are we?
Exasperated, they decided to see what had happened to the old tribe.
By this time, they were too lazy to travel themselves, so they sent their machines. Years later, when the machines returned, they reported that without the Foogutoes, the tribe had died off. However, when the data from the machines was extracted and analyzed, it showed the village was primitive, but alive.
The Foogutoes would never know the Truth.