The plank and the bridge.

"The world is not falling apart because there are no bridges, but because we call planks bridges."

There was a town where houses often caught fire.

They weren't big fires, but rather ones that smoked, scared, and disturbed the peace.

People always rushed in with buckets, hoses, and everything they had at hand.

They watered, beat, and extinguished it.

And when it went out, they sighed with relief:

- It's done. We solved it.

There was a man there who wasn't looking at the flame, but at the wall, the wire, the beam.

He asked:

- Why did it catch fire?

- Where will it be next?

- What could prevent it from catching fire again?

But these questions were not popular.

Because the answer always led to the same thing: time, money, work, responsibility.

The others just nodded:

– It's not burning anymore. That's the point.

– If it burns again, we'll put it out again.

A man once wanted to build a bridge over a river where the water washed away the crossing every year.

He calculated, planned, showed how it could be durable, strong, and long-lasting.

But the city threw planks into the water.

– It's cheaper.

– It's faster.

– Now this will be good too.

Of course, the planks washed away every spring.

At that time, they brought new planks, and in the meantime they scolded the old crossing:

– How lousy it was!

– Who made it so weak?

At that time, the man didn't say anything.

He knew that the problem wasn't the planks, but that no one wanted the bridge.

One evening he sat on the bank of the river and just looked at the water.

Not with anger. Not with contempt.

With sad understanding.

And he thought:

"It's not that we don't build a bridge.

It's that we believe that the plank is a bridge."

A bridge needs a future.

A plank needs only the panic of the present.

The fire goes out, the water recedes, but what is not fixed, returns.