There’s this story that I read in a book somewhere. I will recount it now, to the best of my recollection.
Once upon a time, there was a lonely man, who was convinced that the world of love should be available to all. He embarks upon the illustrious Road to Romance. He comes up to a door, and approaches the doorkeeper.
The doorkeeper is a beautiful but intimidating-looking woman. He asks if he can enter through the door, to which she responds not now. The man thinks for a minute, before asking, “might I be able to go in later?”
“It’s possible”, she responds. “I’m just a doorkeeper. I’m just relaying the instructions. I don’t know when you will be let in. I can only tell you: not now.”
The lonely man inches closer to the door to get a better view of what’s inside; the gateway is always open. Upon seeing him do this, the woman laughs, “if you’re daring, you may disregard my instruction, and go in anyway. Just be warned.” The man is confused by this. “Would it violate your wishes for me to enter?” The woman shakes her head. “No, you are reading into this all wrong. I’m just the doorkeeper. Whether or not you enter through the door has no impact on me personally. In fact, I could not be more indifferent to it. I’m simply fulfilling my role, as doorkeeper.”
The man, even more confused, asks “ok, if you don’t object, then what’s to stop me from entering?” The woman replies, “fine, enter if you must. But I must warn you. I am just the first and simplest woman to keep a door on this path. Behind this door is another door, and beside it is another woman. And behind that door another door, and another woman, and so on, each more intimidating than the last. The woman after me has stern eyes, and the woman after that an imposing posture. And, gee, even I cannot stand being around the fourth one!”
The man is getting indignant now. His father found love, at least for long enough, so this path that he is on now must be surmountable. Why are all of these bothersome obstacles suddenly appearing in the way? Love is for everyone! But when the man looks again upon the woman, he shutters. She stands tall and well-dressed, with a judging expression. He fears a repeat of the rejection, should he proceed. The man ultimately decides not to enter until he has received explicit instruction to do so.
He waits for days, and in all of these days, the woman patiently and attentively watches over him. She gives him a comfortable sofa to rest on while he waits. The doorkeeper occasionally asks the man of his biographical details, making smalltalk about where he is from and such things. The man sometimes tries to trick the woman. But none of this amounts to anything. He gives her things, and she accepts them, saying, “I will accept these gifts because I know that it pleases you to feel like you are trying, but I must inform you that it has no impact on my decisions.”
As the days turn into weeks, and the weeks into years, she watches him ceaselessly. He forgets about the other doors that were supposed to come after this one. He imagines that there are legions of women eagerly awaiting him, just around the corner. These masses of women are standing right behind the current door, ready to take him, if it wasn’t for this first woman preventing him from entering.
Finally he grows old; he becomes decrepit, blind, and senile. Just before he dies, he motions to ask one final question of the women keeping to the door. At this point, the woman has to lean over to speak to him, because he is now much shorter than her. “What is it?” she asks. The man starts, “Everyone wants a love life. And I know that many other men have found love. But how is that possible, given that all these years, the door has been no-entry? Furthermore, why have I not seen one other man enter through this door? Maybe it would have given me confidence if I was following the lead of another man! And despite the fact that no other man has asked to be let in, I have heard that all other men have found love. How is this possible?”
The woman, knowing that she needs to speak loudly now for the man to hear, said, “No other man has come to this door, because this path is set here specifically for you. I am now going to shut it.”
The end.
When I told the first critic this story, it was pointed out to me that I plagiarized it. This scared me, because I didn’t want to end up in a Youtube exposé about plagiarism. Not to be deterred, I told this story to a second critic. The second critic said, “I don’t get it.”
Me: “What’s not to get?”
Critic: “You don’t have to be a feminist to get that there’s a problem here. The reason he is so worried to go through the door is that he fears the judging eyes of the woman. If entering violates her consent in some way, then I would say the man is quite right not to enter, which undercuts the moral.”
Me: “The story explicitly states it does not go against the woman’s wishes to enter through the door, that it only goes against the instructions that she is relaying as a doorkeeper.”
Critic: “I understand that. But here we have a problem. The man considers going through the door, until he is told that the women behind the doors will be very intimidating and judgmental. But judgmental about what? It must be precisely the acceptance of either the initial woman, or of a subsequent women, that the man is after. Otherwise, it contradicts the logic of the story.
Me: “I see no contradiction.”
Critic: “If that is the case, then what is it that is preventing him from entering, in the first place? You claim that the woman is indifferent. But you also claim that he does not enter because he is afraid of her judgment. That is a contradiction”
Me: “Perhaps nothing is preventing the man from entering. The story simply exists as stated, and is nothing more.”
Critic: “So it is just incoherent. What analogy or message am I supposed to grasp?”
Me: “That is not for me to say. You can decide for yourself what you want to get out of the story. If you get nothing out of it, then so be it; the story has no message.”
Critic: “I’m not impressed. I understand leaving some interpretation up to the reader, fine. But that doesn’t magically make the story good. Anyone can make up a ‘parable’ that doesn’t make any sense.”
Me: “But it seems to me that you have, to some extent, already put a finger on an aspect of the story that is a message to you. You ask: what is preventing the man from entering the door? That is an insight.”
Critic: “No, that’s a plot hole. The man is just refusing to achieve what he wants, but you haven’t said why.”
Me: “What do you presume he wants to achieve?”
I then told a second story.
Once upon a time, there was a lonely man, who was convinced that the world of love should be available to all. He embarks upon the illustrious Road to Romance. He comes up to a door, and approaches the doorkeeper. This man realizes immediately that the path ahead is unique to him.
The man, without a flinch of hesitation, goes through the first door. Soon after, he goes through the next door. And the next, and the next.
He does not heed to the recommendations of the women, nor ask for their instructions. He hardly interacts with the women, either positively or negatively. He says to himself, “just wait! I will soon reach the end of these doors. I will soon reach the world of love. I will find my seat there. I just need to get to the last door, and then love is mine.”
The man goes through the hundredth door. The thousandth door. He continues to egg himself on, “I am achieving a great deal! Look at how many doors I have been through! If I look back, I cannot even see the first door.”
He loses count of how many doors he has been through. He grows older by the day. He ignores the women who administer to the doors, and the women mind their own business. If the women are approached, they respond, but he does not approach them, so the women stay silent. The man is starved for interaction.
Finally, like all men, he grows old and decrepit. His gait becomes slower, and the journey from one door to the next becomes increasingly difficult for him. Eventually, he becomes unable to walk by himself, and asks the women to guide him to their respective doors. He does not converse with them.
One day, a woman tells him, “You just can’t get enough, can you? So much walking.” The man responds. “Can I ask you a question? I have been traveling all this time. Why have I not arrived at the destination?” The woman tells him, coldly, “you have not reached there yet, because the destination is not meant for you.” Seeing that the man is unable to continue, she closes the door.
With his last dying breath, he says to himself, “I wish I had not worked so hard. You know what? It all went wrong when I went through the first door. I should have stopped there, and rested there.”
The end.
My friend initially wasn’t sure what to take from that. All he said was that it was a bleak story. I begin to explain.
Were the men in either fable acting rationally? We cannot make a determination about that, without knowing: what were the men’s goals? We cannot know; the stories don’t say. Therefore, we cannot surmise what they should have done. We can only imagine what our own goals would be, and imagine what we would do, if we found ourselves in that situation.
Critic: “The story explicitly says that the man’s goal is to find love.”
Me: “Very well. If the goal of the man is to find love, then the actions in neither story are ideal for that! Passing through doors does not help him find love. It only helps him find more women, who each may be possible to pursue. But simply passing through doors does not realize that potential pursuant to falling in love with the women. Heck, if the man really wanted love, he needn’t have even walked through a single door! He only need have commiserated with the woman keeping to the first door, and they could have potentially fallen in love with each other.”
Me: “But then, there is always the chance that they were not compatible; maybe she does not like him or vice versa. That’s alright. Staying in one place is not ideal either. He need have simply gone through to the next door. If anything, the woman’s capacity as a doorkeeper is the least interesting thing about her, and the most meaningless part of the story. You did not, and he did not, consider that: the option that would actually lead to love. Instead, you only asked what’s stopping him from walking through the door.”
Critic: “So it’s a trick question? You created red herrings, and mechanics to the story which aren’t meant to be logical, from the standpoint of analogy? And then you criticize me for asking the wrong question.”
Me: “My intent was not to deceive you. I have simply presented a simple story, as-is. Perhaps it can be viewed as an exercise in asking the right questions.”
Critic: “If the story actually does have a moral, then why were you evasive when I prodded you before on the moral. You pretended that the story has no message.”
Me: “That’s not what I said. I just said that if you get nothing out of the parable, then so be it. That is true.”
Critic: “That’s just true of all stories. Whatever takeaway a story hypothetically has, does not exist until it is realized by the person interpreting it. What’s more, there is no inherent meaning that is not contingent upon the interpreter.”
Me: “To tell you the truth. I just didn’t know how to interpret it at first. I was buying time.”
The critic and I nodded to each other, and then the critic left. I don’t remember his name.
Epiphany a Week 