When I was a student, I used to buy a book every month. I loved to learn and I studied all kinds of books. After I got a job, I kept buying books, but I didn’t have as much time and some of the books remained unread.
Once, I learned a lesson that helped me to understand how it is that we read and search and research and study with educated people in order to learn—yet, sometimes a story or even a sentence from a very ordinary person can change our life. It can teach us something that we would not have known—even if we studied all the books in the library.
And so it was for me, too.
I used to buy books from a very old man in Pole Bagheomomi in Kabul. The man came to know me, and one day he asked me, “Do you study all the books you buy from me?”
I looked at him and told him, “No, I am so busy these days, but I try to read them when I have free time.” The old man paused, and looked in my eyes, and told me a story I will not forget.
He told me there was once a scholar who wanted knowledge so much, he would travel from one country to another. At that time it was not easy to travel. Journeys were much more difficult as people went by camel caravan and it took months to go from one country to another. The scholar decided he would go to Baghdad, which, hundreds of years ago, was famous for intellectual learning.
He didn’t take anything with him from his house: no clothes, no money. He took only his books. He put his books in a bag and went to join a camel caravan. In the caravan there were famous businessmen carrying coins of gold and silver and on the way burglars stopped the caravan and took everything they had, including the bag of books. Everyone was worried about their gold and coins. The scholar worried only about his books.
He decided he should go to the head of the thieves and ask for his books. So he went to the thief and told him who he was and that they had taken his bag of books, which he was sure they did not need.
He said, “You can use the money and gold of the other people, but please give me back my books.”
The thief listened to him. He then commanded the burglars to return everything: the money and gold and anything else taken from the caravan, but not the bag of the books.
This worried and surprised the scholar and he asked, “Why?”
The thief looked in the eyes of the scholar and told him: “Don’t carry the books everywhere. Study and read them and put the knowledge in your head. You can easily carry your head and your body everywhere.”
The scholar understood and it was a lesson for him. The bookseller told me the story and it was a good lesson for me too.
By Norwan
Very important lesson, that you carry it with you dear Norwan.