The Tragedy of Tragedy－The Story of Hugh

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A Parable of "Spirituality and Counseling"
－－Robert A. Ross

Once upon a time a Royal person was born. His name was Hugh. Although I’ll refer to Hugh as “he”, no one actually knew what his sex really was and it didn’t really matter. Hugh was unlike anyone who had ever lived before or who would ever live again. Hugh was precious, unrepeatable, incomparable, a trillion-dollar diamond in the rough.

For the first 15 months of life, Hugh only knew himself from the reflections he saw in the eyes of his caretakers. Hugh was terribly unfortunate. His caretakers, although not blind, had glasses over their eyes. Each set of glasses already had a image on it. So each caretaker only saw Hugh according to the image on his glasses. Thus, even though Hugh’s caretakers were physically present, not one of them ever actually saw him. By the time Hugh was grown, he was mosaic of other people’s images of him, none of which was who he really was.

No one had ever seen him, so no one had ever mirrored back to him what he really looked like. Consequently, Hugh thought he was the mosaic of images. He really did not know who he was.

Sometimes in the dark of the night when he was all alone, Hugh knew that something of profound importance was missing. He experienced this as a gnawing sense of emptiness- a deep void.

Hugh tried to fill the emptiness and void with many things: power, worldly fame, money, possessions, chemical highs, food, sex, excitement, entertainment, relationships, children, work-even exercise. But no matter what he did, he never felt the gnawing emptiness go away. In the quiet of the night when all the distractions were gone, he heard a still quiet voice that said:” Don’t forget, please don’t forget me!” But alas! Hugh did forget and went to his death never knowing who he was.

** “For grammatical consistency and clarity, the pronouns “he”, “his” and “him” have been used throughout instead of “she or he”, “his or her” and “ her and him”. No sexual bias or insensitivity is meant.

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We read this story in Dr. Ross’s class. After we read it, Dr. Ross asked us two questions.

1. What was Hugh’s problem?
2. What could save him?

You are more than welcome to join the discussion. If you have any idea please don’t hesitate to share with me.

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悲劇的悲劇 - 休的故事

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“靈性與輔導的比喻” -羅伯特羅斯

從前，有一貴族誕生了。他的名字叫休。雖然我將把休視為“他”，但沒有人真正知道他的性別，不過這也沒有關係。休不像任何曾經活過的人，或永遠活著的人。休是珍貴的，不可重複的，無與倫比的，有如一萬億美元的鑽石的原石。

前15個月的生活，休只在他的照顧者眼裡的反射看到了自己。休是可怕的不幸。他的照顧者，雖然不是盲目，但都有自己眼鏡。每套眼鏡已經有一個形象。因此，每個照顧者只根據他眼鏡看到的圖像對待休。因此，儘管休的照顧者都親臨現場，但他們沒有一個真正見過他。

到休長成的時候，他鑲嵌其他人的形象，沒有一個確實是他。沒有人見過他，所以從來沒有人向他反映他真正的樣子。因此，休以為他是鑲嵌圖像。他真的不知道他是誰。

有時在黑暗的夜晚，當他是獨自一人，休知道有些深刻重要的東西不見了。他一個人經歷過這種空虛感覺的痛苦，深刻而無助。

休試圖用許多無效的東西填補空虛：權力，世俗的名利，金錢，財產，化工高位，食品，性別，興奮，娛樂，人際關係，兒童，工作，甚至工作。但無論他做了什麼，他從來沒有覺得內心空虛的啃嚙消失。在安靜的夜晚，當所有的雜念都消失了，他聽到一個聲音仍然平靜說：“不要忘了，請不要忘記我！”休沒有忘記，但很不幸直到他死亡，他還是不知道他是誰。

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我們在羅斯博士的課讀到這個故事。當我們讀時，羅斯博士問我們兩個問題：

1。休的問題是什麼？

2。怎麼樣才能救他？

很歡迎你加入討論。如果你有什麼想法，請不要猶豫與我分享。