For anybody else his life would literally be hell of their own making. There's a lesson in there.
Once upon a time, in a town like any other, there lived a man named Patrick. He was an undeniably peculiar fellow, spending more time in his imagination than the real world. He loved to daydream, creating strange new worlds and stories in his head, and would stand on an upturned apple crate and cry them to the town.
One sunny afternoon, while Patrick was in the middle of a particularly fantastical story about a far distant land where boys were girls and girls were boys and Norm Macdonald wasn't funny, an unfamiliar face humorously pointed and called him 'silly.' Stiffening with indignation, Patrick volleyed back, suddenly branding the man as a 'criminal' and a 'stalker' and a 'child' much to the surprise of his audience.
You see, the people all knew that Patrick
was silly. His response was so out of place that it sparked whispers among the townsfolk. 'Did Patrick really believe his own stories,' they wondered, 'How silly of him! What misplaced rage!'
But the more people referred to him as silly, the more vehement Patrick's protests became. And so it went. For years Patrick escalated his accusations. He wasted his whole life savings on his pursuits. His drinking spiraled out of control, sending him rabid with rage and delirious with conspiracy. He grew fatter and fatter and begged the disinterested local constabulary to imprison the supposed slanderers.
In his frenzy, however, he failed to notice his life starting to unravel around him. One day when his accusations were at their peak, he saw something that horrified him. Within the crowd that had gathered to watch him, he saw familiar faces. Friends and family and colleagues.
'Silly,' they gently echoed with evident sadness in their eyes. That single word from the mouths of those he held dear crumbled a foundational block in the fortress he had built up around himself, and his stronghold began to crack. Patrick's stubborn pride and anger shattered, and he truly realized what he had become.
It was he himself who had managed to create a life more akin to a hell than a home. The walls surrounding him were built by his own hands, isolating himself from everyone around him. The pain and disappointment in his family's eyes were reflections of him, not the townsfolk who had called him silly. That's why he had never won in the courts. That's why the police had never arrested anyone. That's why his audience had slowly slipped away despite, what he thought, was the tale of a century!
It was so simple all along. Patrick
was silly. But he didn't have to be.
With newfound clarity, Patrick sincerely apologized to the crowd for his unruly behavior and false accusations. His plea was met with silence, but suddenly, something amazing happened. Smiles broke out across the sea of faces and forgiveness bloomed. His long lost daughter rushed into his arms, and Norm smiled from heaven, as justice had been done.
And thus ends our fable with an important moral: It is not what others say about us but our response to them that determines our reality. For as every
good author knows, our reactions can often paint us as the villains of our own stories.
