Author: George Todorov
Tale of the The River Traders and The Ancient Rules of Zharrada
The younf traders from Sultan City learned that their old, but fun friend Exer had recently returned from a trading journey from the far country of Maurivia. It wasn’t long before Exer gathered his young friends. He placed them in a circle around him, he took out a tray of sweets and a jug of young mellow wine and started telling them about his new adventures…
- Mauruvia, friends, is a beautiful country. It has a lot of rivers, mountains, and many, many beautiful places! – started Exer. – There the food is delicious, the water is cold and the air is clean and cool. I saw many wonders, I visited a lot of places and I met a lot of people – I liked everything. But most of all I liked the River Traders of Maurivia. This is what I am going to talk about today.
- The whole country is crossed by a huge river that has more water in it than all of our rivers together during the spring, when the “great waters” come. All the time the river traders travel up and down the river; man of all ages with small and big boats. They row from rise to dawn and sell their goods. In rain or in sun, in cold or in wind – they don’t stop trading. For them life is movement. The locals have a special name for them – “the rowers of life.” What makes them so interesting is one ancient rule they all follow. A rule, given to them by their fathers, who had them from their fathers before, and so on from centuries. This simple rule is being constantly twisted in our lands as a mistake in relations with other people. A rule that many of the traders in our lands don’t know, while they should. They call it “ZHARRADA” and when they pronounce this word, in the eyes of every one of them appears the respect for the wisdom of their ancestors.
- The rule is very simple: “nobody argues with the rest.” Every trader must obey this rule if he wants to have his own boat and travel without any limits and not argue with anybody or because of anything.
- So how do they trade? – asked one of the young traders. – In trading there is a constant negotiation, conflicts, dissagreements and attacks, which all by themselves represent a slight arguing between two traders. It is highly possible that in a real negotiation the two people actually reach a state of a real fight. The traders of the City of The White Stone even use arguing with the purpose of draining your powers and your mind so that they can sell or buy with a greater profit. So how to the rowers trade when they can not argue? – the boy wondered over the words of the old man.
It’s very simple, young friend! – laughed Exer – Instead of fighting, they have developed to the level of perfection a whole lot of other things. For example, they have a rich bag full of principles for persuation – they managed to show me over seventy different ways of convincing. They developed many models of argumentation – even the youngest traders can build up arguments as solid as the Rock of beautiful Bezhirra! They know a lot about the ways of offering too – I personally witness how the same stock can be offered to different buyers in ten different ways and this amazed me, since that skill makes them more powerfull and capable. They have found many of the secrets of the human mind and soul, of the people’s actual personality. They perfectly know the person and can quickly understand his joys, his pains, his powers and his weaknesses just by talking a little with him. Actually they don’t even need to talk to someone but just observe him instead – they can read the body language of every human or animal creature. Just as they lead their boats, they lead their words – they know a lot of ways of expressing and the principles of the ancient skill to speak in front of a lot of people. The skill to listen to a person and to hear what matters is excelently developed, which makes them very self-suficient because they don’t waste unnecessary words but discuss the stock only and the details on it. The best traders among them negotiate with each other only when passing each other on the river.
- And all of this they managed to accomplish only by not fighting with each other! The elder traders teach their younger brothers the wisdom of their ancestors:
“Pure thoughts, pure deeds”
Trading is the most ancient art, they say, and in ordr to preserve and develop it, people should not perform it with bad thoughts. Trading has always been a two-side process. A person can not trade with himself. This is why every one of them remembers that if it takes two to trade, then there are two points of interest. And until all interests are satisfied, there is no trading. In order for two people to reach an agreement for two different things, there is only one way – having pure thoughts. It is not important if one skill is used and other not – this is acceptable for trading and this is the true charm of the eternal game called trading. The important thing is to have pure thoughts. And if there are pure thoughts there is an agreement. And the agreement is a pure deed. Here is why they say “Pure thoughts, pure deeds!” This is Zharrada – the river of Life!
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