Ouch

The Prisoner In The Dark CaveThere once was a man who was sentenced to die. He wasblindfolded and put in a pitch dark cave. The cave was 100yards by 100 yards. He was told that there was a way out ofthe cave, and if he could find it, he was a free man.After a rock was secured at the entrance of the cave, theprisoner was allowed to take his blindfold off and roamfreely in the darkness. He was to be fed only bread andwater for the first 30 days and nothing thereafter. Thebread and water were lowered from a small hole in the roofat the south end of the cave. The ceiling was about 18 feethigh. The opening was about one foot in diameter. Theprisoner could see a faint light up above, but no lightcame into the cave.As the prisoner roamed and crawled around the cave, hebumped into rocks. Some were rather large. He thought thatif he could build a mound of rocks and dirt that was highenough, he could reach the opening and enlarge it enough tocrawl through and escape. Since he was 5'9", and his reachwas two feet, the mound had to be at least 10 feet high.So the prisoner spent his waking hours picking up rocks anddigging up dirt. At the end of two weeks, he had built amound of about six feet. He thought that if he couldduplicate that in the next two weeks, he could make itbefore his food ran out. But as he had already used most ofthe rocks in the cave, he had to dig harder and harder. Hehad to do the digging with his bare hands. After a monthhad passed, the mound was nine and half feet high and hecould almost reach the opening if he jumped. He was almostexhausted and extremely weak.One day just as he thought he could touch the opening, hefell. He was simply too weak to get up, and in two days hedied. His captors came to get his body. They rolled awaythe huge rock that covered the entrance. As the lightflooded into the cave, it illuminated an opening in thewall of the cave about three feet in circumference.The opening was the opening to a tunnel which led to theother side of the mountain. This was the passage to freedomthe prisoner had been told about. It was in the south walldirectly under the opening in the ceiling. All the prisonerwould have had to do was crawl about 200 feet and he wouldhave found freedom. He had so completely focused on theopening of light that it never occurred to him to look forfreedom in the darkness. Liberation was there all the timeright next to the mound he was building, but it was in thedarkness.