Among the demons of old there was one named Kumbhakarna, the giant brother
of the demon-king Ravana. Kumbhakarna was famous for one thing above all
others: his sleep. He slept for months at a stretch, and waking him took
war-drums, elephants walking across his chest, and a hundred men shouting in
his ears.
But this is a tale about a smaller demon, one of Kumbhakarna's followers, a
creature named Nidralu. Nidralu had decided to be just like his hero. He held
on to his sleep as if it were treasure. When the morning sun came, he gripped
his blanket and growled, "Just a little longer." When fear crept up, he did
not face it; he clutched it close and let it grow. When sorrow came, he
hugged it and nursed it and would not be comforted. And whenever he did the
smallest thing well, he puffed up like a frog and bragged for a week.
A wandering sage took shelter in Nidralu's cave one rainy night and watched
him in wonder.
"You have great holding-power," the sage said the next morning, as Nidralu
refused, yet again, to rise. "I have rarely seen anyone grip so hard. But
look what you are gripping! Sleep, when you could be doing. Fear, when you
could be brave. Sorrow, when comfort sits right beside you. Pride, over
nothing at all. You are using all your strength to hold yourself down."
Nidralu cracked open one eye. "But it is comfortable," he mumbled.
"It is the comfort of a stuck wheel," said the sage. "A wheel stuck in mud
feels very firm. It does not wobble. But it goes nowhere, and slowly it
sinks." He gathered his things to leave. "There is a firmness that holds you
steady so you can move forward, and a firmness that just holds you stuck.
Yours, my friend, is the second kind. The bravest thing you could do today
is the simplest. Let go. Open your hand. Get up."
Nidralu pulled the blanket back over his head. But long after the sage had
gone, in the dark under the wool, the words kept poking at him: a firmness
that holds you stuck. And for the first time in a long while, a small,
uncomfortable part of him wanted to get up.
