The new abbot of the Spider Clan happened upon the old monk
Shinpuru weeding his garden.
Said the abbot, “You have been content to remain a humble
developer all your life. Many times you have been offered
the post of abbot, yet each time you declined. Now the few
hairs clinging to your head are pale and thin. Have you no
ambition? As we ask the applicants: where do you see
yourself in five years?”
Shinpuru plucked a dandelion that had gone to seed and blew
hard upon its puffball. Silver seedlings scattered, wafting
up on the breeze. Shinpuru gave the bald broken stem to the
abbot, and without another word resumed his gardening.
Later that day the abbot told this story to master Banzen.
Producing the dead stem from his robes, the abbot said, “The
aimless monk Shinpuru looks forward to nothing but his own
death.”
Banzen only laughed. “I asked that same question of the
applicant Shinpuru when his face was framed by a lion’s
mane, and I received the same answer. There was no Java in
those days, no XML, no HTTP. We coded in C and shell
scripts, and spoke with wonder of the changes we had seen:
for the days of punch-cards and abacus-engines were still
fresh in our memories. And now? Now the venerable Shinpuru
downloads odd source packages from distant lands, toying
with Ruby and Dojo as a gardener might experiment with
exotic seeds. Who knows what strange languages he will have
mastered five years hence? Meanwhile I will have conducted
two thousand miserable code reviews, and you will have filed
two thousand unread daily reports.”
The master pointed to the sky. “Tell me: where now are those
ambitionless seedlings that Shinpuru blew into the air?”
“I cannot say,” said the abbot. “West or east of where we
stand; drifting on the ocean or circling that tree.”
“Five years hence they could be lighting on the moon, with a
splendid view of the world below,” said the master.
“Remember Shinpuru’s rebuke while you savor your new
station, young abbot! The stem may grow tall, but its roots
are stubborn and its fate is easily foreseen.”
