A fish with a wish

 

Life in a fishbowl

When I was a fish in a bowl, I was happy, or at least I thought I was. I was swimming in circles, little circles, true, but I felt I had a perfect vision of the world. I could see so many things my friends in the lake or sea never saw, I got fed twice each day and the food tasted really nice. My bowl got cleaned at regular times. I did not like to be caught in the net and put in a pail while my bowl got cleaned, but when I came back into the clean fresh water, wow, it felt really good.

When night came, I let my little body sink to the very bottom of the bowl and soon a wonderful sleep came. I had dreams. Dreams of living in a lake. Dreams of having something green in my bowl, some natural stones. In my dreams I would be swimming around them, partially hiding myself and just having a good, joyful time playing around the green plants and the stones.

Then came the day that my human friends called my birthday. They had no idea when or where I was born, but exactly one year after they had bought me and put me in this amazing bowl, they considered it to be my first birthday. They gathered around my bowl, sang a weird song and I basked for a while in their admiring glances. Then the smallest of them asked his parents: “Mom, can I now give my gift?” His mom nodded and the boy took a green plastic plant and a set of natural stones, which he had gathered himself and put them right at the base of my bowl.

It felt like my prayers had been answered, my dreams fulfilled. I had some greenery and a few natural stones to swim around, to hide behind and to sleep on. I was excited. No better present could have been given to me for my birthday. I still remember that first night. After having played the whole afternoon between the plastic green plant and the stones, I was really tired and for the first time, I went to sleep not in an apparently bottomless bowl, but in a bowl with a glorious, textured base. I nestled my body between a piece of plastic and a stone and a heavenly rest descended.

After a few days, the plants and stones had lost a bit of their glamour. They still made a huge difference in my bowl, but somehow, I got used to them and swimming between them did not give me the great pleasure I had experienced on that very first day. My sleep had been of good quality but slowly new dreams appeared in my little head.

While all my physical needs seemed to be taken care of extremely well by the boy in the family, I had every day this feeling of ever-growing boredom. The sights from my bowl were much the same most days, the swimming was so limited and I had really nothing to do. The feeling of being a useless little fish started to haunt me.

My dreams got stranger and stranger by the day. There was a growing deep desire to be more like the boy who took care of my food and my cleanliness. I could see him talking, being cuddled by his mom, having fun, laughing, all things that were beyond my possibilities. The desire and dreams became stronger and stronger, until one night they were extremely intense. I called upon our upper fish-god, Neptune, and demanded he let me be a human for at least a week. Neptune appeared in all his grandeur and glamour in front of me and gave me an hour-long sermon. For whatever he told me and argued, I had some answers ready and, in the end, he granted me my biggest wish: He spoke some mystical words and flash wippety flash, within a minute, I walked around as a human.

The transformation

Neptune had turned me into a rather good-looking man of about 20 years old and He had rented for me a place in a pretty coastal village. It was a nice and cosy apartment on the ground floor, with a small and wonderful garden attached to it. It was part of a condominium with a gym and a swimming pool, which I enjoyed tremendously, having previously been a fish.

Nothing in life is free and neither was the magic granting of my wish to be transformed from fish to human. My benefactor stated from the beginning that this transformation was only temporary and that he wanted me to live up to the full potential of a normal human being. He felt that too many humans were just living like a fish in a bowl and my mission was to learn something every day about all gifts the Universe offers to humans on a daily basis. I was to keep a journal about it and only if Neptune were satisfied with my progress and learning process, would I maintain my human shape for longer. Furthermore, if I managed, only if I managed to discover all gifts, at the end of my human transformation, I would be given a residence in the ocean, not far from Neptune’s own undersea palace.

First, something about the boy and the family who had fed me daily for over a year. The morning after my transformation, the bowl was empty. The boy could not believe his eyes and ran up to his mom: “My fish is gone”. Mom tried to console him and after the dad got involved, the cat got the blame for the disappearance. That same day still the parents went to buy another fish and they had fastened a small net above the bowl, so that the cat could not repeat its uncommitted sin. Then, I thought, if tomorrow meant a return to the bowl, at least there would be a companion there for me.

The gift of food and water

But I did not want to return to the bowl. I wanted to stay human as long as I could and had the deepest desire to live up to the expectations of my God. I did not understand what was meant by ‘too many humans live like a fish in a bowl’. How could they? But I was ready to find out and would do my extreme best to discover what the potential of a normal human might be.

The first day was fabulous. Not only had Neptune provided a nice place to live for me. There was a very generous amount of money at my disposal at any time. When on that very special day, I got hungry, I grew a bit worried initially because there would obviously be no small boy bringing me food twice per day. I was aware that I had to search for the food myself. I went out and along the busy streets in the town, there were so many restaurants. Most were selling seafood or fish and I really did not want to enter such a place. Finally, I found a vegetarian restaurant and I discovered the pleasure of having a large variety of foods. After having a (deep) plate of tomato soup with some croutons in it, I had a variety of vegetables and fruits. Delicious, super delicious! I thought back about the days when the boy had fed me the same fish food day after day, after day. I discovered also how important water was. As a fish, I was just swimming in it and had been taking it all for granted. Now the goodness that a cool glass of pure water could do to my body felt so great, and for the very first time in my life, I appreciated water.

In my journal, I wrote about that wonderful experience. Humans seemed to have quite an easy access to a wide variety of food. They could choose what to eat and had salt, pepper and other spices to make it still tastier. They had soups and purees and had learned over time to prepare and cook nature’s treasures in the most wonderful ways. How grateful I became inside. Being able to enjoy food like this, must be definitely among the huge benefits, that Neptune had spoken of. I did not forget to write about the amazing feeling of lessening my thirst with the purest of water. Then I went a bit deeper. No, not deeper into the ocean, but a bit deeper into my thoughts and the simple fact that I could be grateful for the food and water I had so easily obtained. This gratitude for food and drinks was perhaps still a better and bigger gift than the actual food and drinks themselves. I could hardly wait to show to Neptune what I had discovered. He must be truly proud of me to have discovered the gifts the universe provides to the humans: the gift of food and water, the gift of being grateful for it.

A few days passed and I kept enjoying the gifts I had discovered. I learned about many more vegetarian restaurants in town. One was Indian and the spices they used at that place were truly superb. I even learned how to prepare some of the dishes myself. When my God finally appeared to read my journal for the first time, I was a little nervous. Even though I was quite convinced that I had found truly valuable gifts, the thought of being sent back to my fish-bowl gave me shivers down my spine. It took not long for a smile on the face of Neptune to appear while reading my journal and He seemed visibly pleased. Would I get my place in the deep ocean or would I have the opportunity to stay longer in this human world? He said I had discovered the very important gifts of food and drink and that He was very pleased that I had managed to go even a bit deeper in thought and had thus discovered the superb gift of gratefulness.

He went on to explain that stilling our hunger and thirst was one of the primary needs of all humans, a need shared with the rest of the animal kingdom. But through evolution and cultural developments, humans had learned the science of agriculture, making food available to many societies in a relatively easy way. There were still areas in this world where humans had to spend most of their time in a struggle to obtain food and water and hardly enjoyed the many other gifts the universe had to offer.

Many other humans are so enthralled by the pleasure of taking food that they keep eating way too much. They accumulate fat, get overweight, obese, and feel uncomfortable. They may even get sick and die early. Having enough food to eat is a great gift of the universe to humanity, leading to pleasure, but all too soon the pleasure is gone and we become hungry again. Neptune explained a bit more about the transient nature of stilling our hunger and thirst. He was happy with my progress and encouraged me to discover the other great gifts which the universe offered to humans.

The gift of sexual pleasure

If I would have to compare the vegetarian restaurants in the town, I really loved the food at the Indian place, but I frequently went back to the restaurant I had visited the first day. Perhaps because it brought back the memories of the first time, but also a bit because of the service. The service there was excellent. There was a superbly beautiful waitress with wonderful black hair and dark eyes. Her face seemed perfect and her suntan was simply glorious. She always smiled at me and served me as if I was a very important person. One day, I was a bit late for lunch and her shift finished at 2pm. I invited her to take a cup of coffee with me. She did. After that, we went for a walk in the park and went cycling together. At night we had dinner together and she stayed over at my apartment. She let me see her while she was showering and what followed, I can simply not describe here. It was pure heaven.

When I woke up the next morning, she was already getting ready to go to her early shift in the restaurant. What I felt inside was great. I felt in a state of bliss, I was in love, in love with this beautiful waitress. What a feeling! Thoughts of foreverness and eternal joy filled my being. I was writing 5 pages in my journal in almost poetic lyrical style about the beauty of the world as a human and I used superlative after superlative. Feelings of fulfilment accompanied such a state of bliss. I compare this gratefulness to the ‘cream on the cake’. Every gift humans received from the universe seemed divine, but the gratitude in our hearts made it still nicer. I thought about her and I almost completely forgot about Neptune.

When I returned to the restaurant for my next lunch, she was serving a few other tables and her male colleague was the one taking care of my table. I thought she was teasing me, but somehow, she was not. The magic of that special afternoon and the night never returned and after a short term I learned from other workers in the restaurant that she was married to a businessman who had to travel quite frequently. I was heartbroken. It seemed like a huge castle of joy just had collapsed on me and I found it difficult to breathe under its rubble. I was still in a very bad and depressed mood when my God paid his next visit. Strangely, I would have not have minded this time, if I had been sent back to my fishbowl existence.

Neptune smiled when reading my journal. I had indeed discovered another great gift the universe is giving to humans. It is the feelings of being in love and have the closest possible sensual contact with the ones we fall in love with. However, these feelings tend to be fragile. If relationships end, they can leave us completely helpless and broken. Sexual needs belong to the same class of needs as hunger and thirst. They need somehow fulfilment. If hunger and thirst are not relieved, the person will die, if sexual needs were entirely ignored, the species would not survive. These are all primary needs and they need a certain level of fulfilment before we can focus on other needs.

As with food, sexual pleasure can become for many people also a bit of an obsession. Their whole life purpose is obscured by their big desires to have more and more exotic types of experiences with so many partners. They go on breaking other people’s hearts and lead a self-centred, pathetic life. The best way to get a stable satisfaction of these needs is to listen to that voice of “forever” and to that longing for eternity. A stable relationship in life can free us to get focused on greater gifts available from the universe to humanity. I was reminded of my task to discover also the other gifts and the temporary nature of my human experience did not allow any long-term relationships.

The gift of comfort

Still a bit shaken from the experience of the previous week, I persevered with my life as a human. My apartment was comfortable and I kept enjoying the food. Early in the week, I encountered a homeless man who was begging for money on a corner of the street. I had started a small conversation with him and had taken a long time to listen to his complete story. He had started out in his early adulthood quite normally. He had a job at a travel agency and he had a beautiful wife and child. Five years ago, after a big quarrel, his wife took the child and left him. He was trying to mend the relationship but to no avail and the situation left him so heartbroken that he could not focus on his work. He made mistake after mistake and was fired within six months of the break-up. He had not enough money to pay the rent and was evicted from his house. No matter how hard he tried, there had been no job opportunity for him and now he was living a miserable life, depending on the alms of some kind-hearted people. I took pity on him and bought him a hearty meal and gave him a good amount of money, enough to help him eat well for a few days.

A day or two after that, I met with a gentleman, while having my dinner. He was very well dressed and was carrying an umbrella. We had dinner at adjacent tables but our conversation was so intriguing that soon we were sitting in front of each other. He was the CEO of a large enterprise and basked in great wealth. He had a Rolls-Royce and offered me a ride after dinner. I was thrilled to be in such a wonderful car. This seemed to be the pinnacle of happiness. Perhaps that man had received one of the biggest gifts in the universe. But as the conversation went on, things outside of his professional successes and his huge wealth did not seem to go so well. His son had passed away from a drug overdose and his wife had then been admitted to a psychiatric institution and even though he had a penthouse with a wonderful view of the town and - from another balcony - over the sea, he felt extremely lonely and sad. Recently he himself had developed some difficulty in keeping his equilibrium after waking, and a scan of his brain was planned.

My journal entries for that week were quite interesting. After the meeting with the beggar I had become convinced that we need wealth to be happy, but then after meeting my new billionaire friend, who was extremely unhappy, I became really confused. It seemed to me that without a certain level of wealth we cannot be happy, but next to wealth, no matter how excessive, we need a huge variety of other things too, to be truly happy. The universe has given to humans the intelligence and talents to work for a decent level of wealth, that allows people to live in a certain state of comfort.

The next visit from Neptune was a good one. He agreed with my observations on material wealth. The need for a certain level of comfort and safety for the future is quite essential. Not as essential for survival as food, water and procreation, but still without it is very hard to truly enjoy the other major gifts of the universe to humanity. As with the pleasures of food and sex, the joy attached to increasing one’s personal wealth and comfort, has become addictive to some people and no matter what, that is what they pursue, sometimes at the high costs of damaging family harmony and personal health. My God was extremely pleased that all my observations ended with a sense of gratitude that gives a silver lining to whatever gift we receive from the universe. Now it was time to discover some bigger, still more valuable gifts that the universe provides.

Truly, my first few weeks as a human had been amazing. Absolutely amazing. I had discovered the pleasures of fulfilling our primary needs (food, water and sex), of having our secondary needs alleviated (some material wealth and comfort) and I had successfully topped-up the fulfilment of these needs with a great sense of gratitude. From the last meeting with Neptune, it seemed that there was still so much more for me to explore in terms of gifts of the universe to humanity. If these other gifts were still bigger than what I had experienced up to now, I could hardly wait to see what was coming.

The gift of beauty

In the past few weeks, I had mainly spent my time exploring the town, occasionally stopping by at the wonderful beaches that lined the coast. Now the weather seemed to have turned against me a bit and the whole of the morning it had been raining from thick clouds hiding the sun.

In the late afternoon, the sky finally decided it wanted some blueness. Even then the clouds had left some white patches, streaky and whirled, like a wind. The moon was faintly visible. After a small walk, I reached the beach and it seemed huge; the tide seemed lower than ever before. The emptiness of the wet beach accentuated a lonely small fishing boat on the soft blue sea. On the horizon, the distant islands that were on most other days hidden in mist or clouds were so clearly visible that they actually appeared closer. My eyes searched above the trees behind me, for a glimpse of the sea eagles that live nearby. They used to just soar with wings widespread, no need to flap. I didn’t notice any eagles but instead saw a multitude of smaller birds that were flying around the trees almost like black specks against the blueness of the sky.

While lowering my gaze, I noticed, still behind me, that the morning glory, these wonderful purplish flowers that tend to bloom close to the sand in a most adorable way, but wilt by 2pm, had not withered as much as on other days. Perhaps the morning rain and extra humidity had helped them to hold on a bit longer. I loved these flowers.

The sound of the waves was magnificent. They broke one by one, in crescendo and then back down. The rhythm of the waves bringing ultimate peace in my heart, stirring up love in my soul. Then the sound of galloping hooves expanded the orchestra, as three horses approached. Throwing up and down their riders, stopping abruptly to cross the shallow river mouth that met the sea just a few metres from where I sat.

The sunlight slowly turned from white to yellow and the casuarina trees developed a magic glow. The blueness of the sky became a bit darker, the moon a bit brighter. The breeze on my wet feet announced the chilliness of an impending dusk. A wave of gratefulness engulfed my being.

While I had so many times dropped by at the beaches and passed the wonderful shore that borders the town, I had rarely taken the time to pause all thoughts I was busy with, to observe the beauty that it offered.

Wow! Wow, Wauw! What a feeling! In the next few days, there were still more clouds than usual but the colours of the sky regularly caught my full attention. How could I have not spent time enjoying such beauty for so long? Along the streets, there were trees and flowering plants. I had seen them and I thought that I was appreciating them, but not until I chose to be fully aware of their absolute beauty, did the beauty of nature really touch my heart and soul.

This week I became fully aware of the beauty that was surrounding me. Not only the obvious beauty of colourful flowers but also the beauty of a blade of grass and the thousands of tiny purplish flowers dotted between those blades of grass. Before I had stepped on them without even noticing them. It was like that afternoon after the rain had awakened a new level of awareness, a level of conscious appreciation of all the beautiful things that nature was offering. I observed small things and creatures that I had not seen or noticed before. It filled my heart and touched my soul.

I was sure that my God would be pleased with my journal entries, which looked much like the text above. And He was pleased. Finally, I had reached the stage of satisfying my tertiary needs.

I had discovered in the previous weeks so many things that gave me transient joy or gaiety but, in the last week, I had really found sources of true happiness, peace of mind and feeling good. The beauty of nature had always been there, but only now was I consciously finding time to be fully aware of all that beauty. The beauty of nature is there for all creatures but only humans can be fully aware of it, absorb all that splendour and let it consciously touch their hearts and fill our souls with a peace that is truly great.

The gift of peace

Neptune had encouraged me to go and actively discover more gifts of the universe to humanity. Still filled with the thrills of daily actively, becoming increasingly aware of the beauty of the skies and nature, late in the evening I was thinking about what the other gifts might be. It was silent in my room. Outside my window, I could hear the sound of a few birds and, in the distance, the breaking of the waves of the sea. Wasn’t this another gift? The gift of peace. I thought about peace and became aware of the peace I had ignored during that time I had spent as a human. Every morning my thoughts had run wild about I was going to do that day and I was focusing on so many things except for the peace that was mine every day.

I closed my eyes. I listened to the small sounds in my room and from outside. I savoured the peace that surrounded me. I savoured the taste of silence. I made it quiet inside me too. And the feeling was just great. Peace was definitely another one of the great gifts that Neptune had been talking about. I set these discoveries down in my journal and felt already proud of the appreciation I would get when my God saw what I had discovered.

I started to slowly live at another level. My first weeks had been quite physical: Enjoying food and sexual ecstasy, and some of the luxuries that were at my disposal. Now I started to enjoy more spiritual things like beauty and silence. I slowly started to understand why Neptune liked to speak about primary, secondary and tertiary needs. I started to comprehend a bit why He had initially said that too many people are living like a fish in a bowl. If we do not make time for beauty, do not make time for silence, we tend to live a life more confined to animal instincts.

The gift of love

In the week that followed I discovered the gift of love. Oh, no, not that of being in love. I had discovered that already. I think that here the English language is a bit limited. They use the same word, love, for the romantic feelings of being IN love, and for the much bigger love, I was to discover that week, the one I like to label as Love with a big letter L. Even in some fish-languages, there are different words for these two types of love.

It started when I met again with the beggar on the street mentioned earlier. I had once again bought some food and given him some money; it had made me feel good. This time I was more aware of the good feelings that small act of kindness brought about. I compared these with the good feelings I got when fulfilling my primary needs and even when I enjoyed that ride in the Rolls-Royce car. The feeling we get when we help someone is of such a different quality, of so much bigger a quality. It makes us feel good, really good about ourselves. It brings a level of happiness of a higher order, that is tightly entangled with peace of mind and a feeling of bliss.

Having felt that warm great feeling, I went on walking the streets with a sense of purpose. I wanted to help more people and wherever I could. I saw an old man crossing the road and I gave him a helping hand. I met with a street sweeper and I stopped in my steps to greet him and have a short chat with him. The smile on his face was amazing. I went to the park and sat on a bench next to a lonely lady. I had started a short conversation with her and became absorbed in her life story for more than half an hour. I could see her grow from a grumpy old lady into a brilliant mature woman whose eyes were shining.

How could I have been walking on earth as a human without enjoying at a very conscious level that superb feeling of altruism? I became aware that every single day I had been presented with many opportunities to do good. I either had not seen them or had simply ignored them, while now, I started to actively look for them and take them on with my whole being, and feel truly good about it. In previous weeks, I had enjoyed the small things but the truly big stuff had passed me by without me noticing much of it. I had not been aware of beauty. I had not been aware of peace and I had not been aware of the wonderful happiness that love, Love with a big letter L, brought about.

For the experience of beauty and peace, all we have to do is open our hearts and minds to them and passively let them in. For love, it is a bit different. Love is sitting already in our heart and to fully enjoy its great results, we have to let it out. The more we let Love out, the more we tend to have inside. It is like a source of a river: the more the water flows away to the sea, the more it is replenished with new water from the source.

Love, the one with a big L, is not calculative. There will be always a small number of people who are not receptive to love. Others are receptive but are too introverted to give love back. But if we move through life in a Loving way, there will be always more love coming our way than we expect. On the other hand, if we desperately try to impress and be loved by others, true love and friendship seem to run faster and faster away from us.

Love with capital ‘L’ has a kind of purity in it. No matter how people respond, it seems to wash away previously present, bad feelings and can replace them with an inner joy, a great peace of mind.

Neptune had given me a small cahier (one of these fancy notebooks) in which to keep my journal. And the last few weeks had been so exciting that my writing had been quite prolific. I thought that soon the book would be full.

The gift of creativity

While on his next visit, Neptune was extremely pleased, He reminded me of the temporary nature of my human transformation. I had only one week left. And while the Universe has provided a multitude of other fantastic gifts still for humanity, I had discovered a set of really important ones. He wanted me to focus, during my very last week as a human, upon the gift of creativity.

I grew a bit worried about my return to the state of fish. I begged Neptune not to send me back to the bowl. He indicated that he was so pleased with how I had actively discovered many gifts from the universe to humanity and that in my short human experience I had managed to reach a decent spiritual level. He would instead give me the gift of being a dolphin, one of these happy-looking water mammals who have an extensive social life and developed communications with each other. They like to make jumps out of the water and seem forever playful. I was happy with the offer and on top of this Neptune said I was at any time welcome to visit his undersea palace and to enjoy the magnificent beauty of the gardens thereabouts.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

With such a perspective in view, I started to work on my last task, discovering the gift of creativity. While thinking about what it meant, I became aware that each human was endowed with certain talents. All too many people remained unaware of their innate talents and were living merely a superficial life trying to enjoy the fulfilment of their primary needs. They still had to discover the huge joy of living a more spiritual life, incorporating in every day some time for becoming fully aware of beauty, peace and sharing Love. And if on top of that we become aware of our own talents, then we can use them to help and love people in an extraordinary, highly effective way.

Looking at my own talents, I knew I was not good at drawing. Friends I had met in different places had challenged me to paint or draw. I had tried but I was never satisfied with the result. I did have talent to connect with people and perhaps I could taste the fruits of creativity by using it. When thinking about a more creative way to help the beggar, the idea came to connect him to my millionaire friend. I could talk my millionaire friend into getting the satisfaction of helping a poor man and, as CEO of his company, surely, he might find him a job. I went to talk to the beggar and he was so excited about the prospect of getting a job at that company. Within days these two friends of mine were negotiating the details of a job that would work best for my unluckiest friend.

Another of my talents, I felt, was writing. Through keeping the journal throughout my existence as a human, I had become quite good with words. I have used my talents and the gift of creativity to write this short story. I hope it will reach a big readership and somehow many people may get inspired to move out of their life “in a bowl”, towards a life at its fullest, with a higher level of appreciation and awareness of peace, beauty, Love and creativity.

Epilogue

Today is my very last day in my human transformation. It has been a super exciting time in my life. I am superbly grateful to Neptune, my God, for granting me that “fishy” wish. Neptune came over and read my story. He liked it very much and promised he would pass it on to a Belgian poet, living in Malaysia. He was sure this poet would be willing to share this story with the rest of the world. Thanks, so much to Neptune. He was the one giving me a supreme purpose during my short human experience and living a life of purpose may remain the biggest gift conveyed by the universe to humans.

The next time you happen to see

A dolphin jumping up from the sea

Please think back about this story

Because that dolphin could be me...

~*~

Hans Van Rostenberghe (Aufie Zophy), Belgium/Malaysia

— Born on October 18th 1964, in Oudenaarde, Belgium, I'm currently living in a town called Bachok, in Kelantan State, Malaysia. I am a doctor of medicine (neonatologist) and a professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, where I have been working since 1994. Among the most important sources of inspiration in my life are Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Martin Luther King and the Organisation 'Médécins sans Frontieres'. Poetry has become a passion since 2010, when I was bedridden for three months, due to a fractured vertebra. I write under the pseudonym 'Aufie Zophy'. I am a reader of philosophy, a nature lover and a family man. I believe strongly that the world is heading towards harmony through an ever increasing kindness revolution which is close to its sharp inflection point on its exponential curve. I express my ideas in short essays and poems through my blog, 'Soul sprinkles' : http://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/

~*~