In Hawaii, Pali is a place where the trade winds from the north fly through a great ridge of mountains. People go up to feel the winds blow through the hair before they commit suicide. One day, policemen driving up the Pali Road saw a young man preparing to jump. They stopped. One of the policemen caught the man as he jumped and he began to fall with him. Just then the second policeman arrived to pull both of them back.
Do you realize what had suddenly happened to that policeman who had given himself to death for an unknown youth? Everything else in his life had dropped off - his duty to his family, his duty to his job, his duty to his own life – all his wishes and hopes for his lifetime had just disappeared. He was about to die.
Later a newspaper reporter asked him, “Why didn’t you let go? You could have been killed.”
And his reported answer was, “I couldn’t let go. If I had let that young man go I couldn’t have lived another day of my life.” -Joseph Campbell
This is our task, to preserve life.
Comments