Only Robbery and Murder

“Nothing, only robbery and murder,” Tom told the trio of boys listening to him. “Except that you bring them to the cave here, and keep them till they’re ransomed.”

That scene is from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. If it were a 2000s comedy it might star Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly.

Tom went on.

“There’s a caravan coming through soon. Camels! Elephants! Gold! Jewels! We’re gonna rob them and it’ll all be ours.”

Of course that caravan does not travel through Missouri (or anywhere) and when asked by his friends what happened, Tom explains that the caravan did come through but it was bewitched! Wizards concealed the identities. “Don’t you know nothin’” Tom exclaims, “it’s just like in the book Don Quixote.”

These emails. Best selling books. Podcast. These are all stories. They can guide us or mislead us. They can help or hurt.

We must mix them with reality. And when reality says otherwise it’s our stories that were wrong.

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