Musician of Taguang

I’m sure you’ve heard the statement, “God, grant me patience and give it to me right now.” The same can be said for success; we have a tendency to be impatient around it. Here’s an interesting folktale on that topic.

A long time ago, in the town of Tagaung, there lived a couple who had one son. His name was Maung Pon. As the boy grew into adolescence, his father thought he should have a profession.

“Our family has never had a musician,” the father mused. “That’s not right. Maung Pon will be a musi­cian. He will become a great harp player and make our family proud.”

He went out and hired a harp teacher and bought a lovely little harp for his son. Every day the boy took his harp to the teacher for a lesson. He wanted to learn, but he wasn’t very good. His fingers were thick, and hard as he would try, he couldn’t play delicately and he continually broke the strings.

The father bought more and stronger strings, but it didn’t make any difference. The teacher worked pa­tiently with the boy, but Maung Pon couldn’t treat the harp with any sensitivity. Strings kept breaking.

The teacher gave up hope, but the father kept paying for lessons, so the teacher kept working with the boy.

Maung Pon grew into a man. He married and had seven children. His old harp teacher died. The father found a new teacher.

Then the father died. Maung Pon’s mother kept paying for lessons and for new harp strings. After she died, Maung Pon paid for his own lessons and strings.

As Maung Pon got older, his teachers were all much younger than he. He bought a lot of different harps, hoping to find one that could stand up to his punishing style of play. Finally, Maung Pon died. All his harps were stored in the houses of his children and grandchildren. He was forgotten.

Decades later, one of his great grandchildren found an old dusty harp in the back of a closet. He asked other family members where it had come from.

Someone said, “Well, I think I remember we had an ancestor years ago who played the harp. Who was it? Let’s see … Maung Pon, I think. I seem to recall that he was really good on the harp.”

Curious, they asked other relatives, who looked in their closets and storage places. Many of the old harps turned up. The relatives talked more and more about Maung Pon, and exchanged stories about his beautiful and tender playing. There was some disagreement about certain details, but over time all the stories coalesced. The family spoke with pride of their tal­ented ancestor.

Thus it was, after almost one hundred years, Maung Pon fulfilled his father’s hopes.

Now, you might be thinking that this story is about the stupidity of staying with something long after it’s clear that it’s a lost cause. What does Kenny Rogers say in that country song about knowin’ when to hold ‘em and knowin’ when to fold ‘em?

But the story can also be about defining success differently. In our culture, we want and expect success right away. This story gives success another context. It illuminates Benjamin Disraeli’s quotation, “The secret of success is consistency of purpose.”

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing, and keeping the unknown always beyond you.  – Georgia O’Keeffe, in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, 1923