The Hermit and the Executives

He glanced at his black captoe shoes, polished like mirrors by the old shoeshine man in his office building, and leaned over to flick a speck off them; he also pulled up his black dress socks and checked to see if his cuffs broke evenly over his shoes.

He knew, however, that this was not the clothing for mountain climbing, and anxiously checked his gleaming shoes as he walked. After questioning a passing runner, who looked at him in surprise, he was relieved to discover that the hermit's cave was a very short distance. After a twenty minute walk, he found himself at the cave, and stepped into the opening. He looked inside.

A small fire was burning in a sort of stone fireplace, and Eric noticed that a hole in the rock above allowed the smoke to escape. A simple bed of straw was on the left, and a simple table was on the right. The hermit sat in the middle of the cave, in front of the fire. He was a man in his sixties, with deeply wrinkled and tanned skin. His head was completely bald, but a tangled grey beard covered his face. He wore only a dirty robe, which looked more like rags. It was old and tattered. His feet were bare and as leathery and tanned as his face. He looked up, and showed no surprise at his visitor.

"Yes?" he said, and his eyes swept over Eric. He took in the expensive suit, the carefully knotted tie, the impeccable hair, and, especially, the shiny black shoes. Eric was anxiously removing the dust of the road from them with a piece of Kleenex, when he met the hermit's eyes.

For a moment, he did not know where he was.

The hermit seemed to look right through him, opening up his mind with eyes that were disarmingly mild, yet like a laser. He quickly came to himself, however, and introduced himself and explained his reason for coming so far. After giving the hermit his sales pitch, with the confidence and arrogance that had always served him well in the past, he stopped and looked at his listener. He had finished with the offer of a fine job for him at company headquarters, provided of course that he chose to "improve his appearance"...

The hermit did not change his expression. In a quiet, steady voice, he said: "You mean if I dress like you. Perhaps the opposite will happen." Once again, Eric felt his mind opening up, but now he felt as if the hermit himself had stepped inside him. He, Eric Wellington, had to make room for this other person, and his thoughts grew vague and confused.

Eric looked at him in bewilderment. He dismissed the hermit's words, and began again to speak, but stopped as he looked at the hermit's eyes.

The hermit sat on the floor and motioned Eric to the only chair in the room. He began to speak. Each word hit Eric like a blow.

"You are an unhappy man, and you are driven to live a life you do not enjoy. You do not care for anyone, and no one cares for you. However, I can make you happy. I can tell you a way to be content." The hermit stopped speaking and stared at Eric, whose throat had gone dry. In the silence of the cave, surrounded by the greater silence of the mountain, the words pierced Eric's mind and settled into his being, where they seemed to magnify. Were they true? He felt his self-possession and his confidence weakening.