You are in a dark room. So dark that at first you can’t see anything. Pitch black. Then slowly, as your eyes adjust to the gloom, you notice a gathering light in the centre of the room. A faint glow, so tiny, the last of a candle flame. When you try to look at it directly, it’s too bright, and hurts your eyes. But the candle is on the brink of going out. The room is cold, and whenever the wind blows the flame gutters in the draft. Once it’s dead, it will be gone forever.
You approach the candle in the centre of the room, the flame has shrunk to barely a spark. You reach out and put your hands around it. You shelter the spark; you encourage it. You tell it that it’s not just a spark, but a true flame. That the more it can withstand without going out, the stronger it becomes. With infinite patience, you watch, as the flame is restored.
Then, you tell it the great secret: that it has the potential to be so much brighter than the darkness of the room. That if the flame wa…
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