The Man Running Past

I cannot apologise enough for not posting recently - my reading life, my working life and basically my life in general has been in no order for accomodating regular posting.  However, I am today dipping from a passage that I read a few weeks ago, and which I thought was something very important.  Have a read.

 THE MAN RUNNING PAST

If one is walking along a street at night and a man who can be seen a long way off - for the street slopes uphill ahead of us and the moon is full - comes running towards us, then we shan't lay hands on him, even if he's feeble and ragged, even if someone else is running after him and shouting, but we'll let him run on.  

For it is nighttime, and we can't help it if the street does slope uphill ahead of us in the full moon, and besides, perhaps these two have organised the chase for their own amusement, perhaps they are both of them pursuing a third man, perhaps the first man is being unjustly pursued, perhaps the second man intends to kill him and we would be implicated in the murder, perhaps the two know nothing of each other and each is simply running home to bed on his own initiative, perhaps they are sleepwalkers, perhaps the first man is armed.  

And after all, haven't we a right to be tired, have we drunk so much wine?  We're glad that we can't see the second man anymore either.  

Frankz Kafka.  Meditation.  

This is a simple little reflective story from Kafkas' compilation of meditations.  I think this serves to jolt any readers into a great habit - can we consider every view, imagine every consequence and cause, and realise how other people are feeling?  I never would have imagined that this simple scenario could lead to so many strands of cause and effect.  What a mind-opening lesson to learn!