@RUTGERS.ARPA:mrose@UDEL-EECIS2.DELAWARE (01/07/85)
From: Marshall Rose <mrose@udel-dewey> I couldn't resist... In ancient times there was a city full of many people. They differed quite a bit in talent, interest, and ability, but they all tried to lead full lives. Many days distant from the city lived a great sage who knew all about everything. One day, an artisan living in the city went forth and travelled to the sage, seeking to ask him the answer to life and so forth. This artisan did not expect a simple answer like "42" (but that, alas, is another story), but something a lot more detailed. After a long and arduous journey, the artisan reached the sage. The sage instructed the artisan for many years as to the answer of the questions posed by the artisan. Much wiser, and much older, the artisan returned to his city. The elders of the city, upon hearing that the artisan had returned from talking to the sage, invited the artisan to come forward and reveal to all the inhabitants of the city what he had learned. Since this sounded interesting, a large number of citizens attended the talk. Included in the audience were others who had visited the sage before and we quite wise the ways of sagedom, along with people who had heard of the sage, but never met him, and those who had never heard of the sage and didn't know quite what to expect. The audience differed quite a bit in talent, interest, and ability, but were all interested in hearing what was to be said. The artisan gave a "short" 4 hour talk in which he used lots of audio-visual aids and hand-waving, skipping over some parts, condensing other parts, and so on. After the talk, the artisan went home. Later that evening, those members of the audience paid the artisan a visit. They demanded to know how he could degrade the sacred teachings of the sage by distorting it thus. The artisan gave them two answers. 1. That's Hollywood. 2. That the artisan's talk was geared for an audience of many talents, interests, and abilities. Although some in the audience could fully appreciate the intracies of the sage's teachings, many could not without visiting the sage themselves. Furthermore, the majority of the audience got the gist of what was going on, and perhaps would be inspired to visit the sage themselves to get the whole story. The artisan then mentioned that nearly everyone who hadn't visited the sage before agreed that the talk was entertaining. /mtr