Wisdom Wrapped in Folktales

When it comes to stories, I have a lot of them for you because I was that kid that had all the story books you could think of. Any story book I wanted, I’d make my dad get it for me. And if he can’t, I’d either borrow it from the owner to read or borrow it from the library. My childhood was just about reading and I had all the stories from those books at my fingertips like I was going to be rewarded for them.

This is to say that, stories have been an integral part of our lives to some extent as kids. Aside the bill, we used to gather under the mango tree in my grandparents house to listen to stores from any older person we could hijack and that was literally the highlight of my childhood.

Today,allow me take you back to the days of ananse. Once upon a time, Kwaku Ananse the spider was known to be very greedy but that wasn’t until he proved it on numerous occasions. One day, Nyame who was God gave him a clay pot which contained all the wisdom in the world.

As selfish as Ananse was, he wanted to have it all to himself instead of sharing with others. And so he devised a plan to hide this pot on a very tall tree. He day was fixed and the deed was set to be done. Ananse tied the pot of wisdom on his big belly and started climbing the tree. Climbing was tough given his belly and the pot right infront of him.

His son, who was watching by saw him in the act and laughed while telling him to rather tie the pot on his back and not infront so as to make climbing easier. In that moment, Anansi paused and it finally hit him that he was doing things the wrong way which made him embarrassed. He thought to himself that even though he had all the wisdom in tne world, he hadn’t thought of that simple solution.

He became angry and ashamed that a child could outsmart him and with this, Anansi threw the pot to the ground. It shattered, and the wisdom scattered everywhere in the world, and to everyone. That’s why today, not only one person has all the wisdom in the world but rather, every carries a piece of all this wisdom. The moral of this story is not be selfish but rather learn to give and share what you have with others.

True wisdom they say is meant to be shared, not hoarded. And no one, no matter how clever, knows everything

all images generated with AI.