[Moved to an earlier time.]
But as long as the space is here, so inviting, I can tell you about a devout fellow named Shlomo met the last time I was in the big city. He was wandering around as if looking for something, while muttering “Thank god! Thank god! Thank god!” over & over. I asked him if he’d lost anything, & he said, yes, he’d lost his car & his wife, & didn’t remember where he had parked either of them. I couldn’t help but ask why he was thanking god, then, and he answered, “If I were with them, I’d be lost too.”
This sounds like a version of the Arkansas traveler, who couldn’t fix his leaky roof while it was raining, & when it wasn’t, didn’t need to. Or the Mount Moron Academy boy west of the river who yelled to the Miss Manners Academy girl east of the river asking how he could get to the other side–to which she answered, “You’re already on the other side.”
Shlomo’s story is also told about a fellow named Gohaha who’d lost his donkey, & went about from place to place muttering “Thanks be to Allah. Thanks be to Allah.” Why was he thankful to Allah for losing his donkey? “Because had I been riding it, I’d be lost, too.”
Here’s a Goha/Gohaha story adapted from “Muslim Journeys”:
Goha Gives His Son a Lesson About People
Goha had a son who worried about what people might think or say. The boy could never do anything, just from being afraid people might think him foolish. Goha wanted to show his son that it was a waste of time to worry about the opinions of others, so he saddled up his donkey & told his son they were going to a neighboring village.
Goha got on his donkey & had his son walk behind, until they passed some people who pointed & said, “Look at that heartless man who rides his donkey & makes his son walk.” When he heard this, Goha got off the donkey & had his son get on, while he walked, until they passed some people who pointed & said, “Just look at that boy who has no manners or respect for the elderly — he rides the donkey & lets his old father walk.” So Goha decided both he & his son should ride, until people pointed & said, “What a cruel man, with no pity for his donkey, both him & his son on at the same time.”
So Goha and his son got off & both walked behind it, until some people started gabbing among themselves, “What a couple of fools! Imagine walking when they have a donkey they could ride.” Finally, after a lot of thought, he said to his son, “Come, let’s carry the donkey between us.” So they lifted up the donkey and began carrying it along the road. As they were staggering along, some people saw them and burst out laughing. “Look at those two madmen,” they said, “carrying the donkey instead of riding on it!”
So they put the donkey down, & Goha said to his son, “You must know, my son, that whatever you do in this life, you will never please everyone.”
Source:
Johnson-Davies, Denys. Goha. Cairo, Egypt: The British Council and Hoopoe Books, 1993, pp. 20; 34-37. Image: Photograph by Nevit Dilmen of Nasreddin Hodja and donkey at the Ankara Amusement Park, 2007, published under GNU Free Documentation License at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harikalar_Diyari_Nasrettin_Hoca_05981_nevit.jpg.
[The moral of this story may be that is you can’t please anyone–not even the old man.]