#summary The story, as it has been told by many generations
#labels Deprecated

= The story, story, as it has been told by many generations =

A long, long time ago, in ancient China, there was an old man who was over a hundred years old. He lived in a modest cabin, near a mountain, in a very desolated place. He lived alone and he hadn't seen any person for many decades; he believed that this connection to nature and the detachment from the civilized world would bring him the ultimate understanding about life, and answers to all secrets in the universe.

One day, after he was done collecting fruits for his morning breakfast from the forest, he tripped on a rock from the ground. Losing balance, he went face-first into the ground, dropping the fruits from his basket in all directions.

Putting himself together, the old man painstakingly rose from the floor and cleaned the dirt from his clothes. When he was about to go after the fruits he had dropped, he noticed there was a dragon standing in front of him, floating in mid-air, looking at the old man. The dragon was snow-white, and had a diamond on the top of his head, just above his eyes, which were like fire; the dragon itself was as big as the highest of the trees, but still, it had a gentle appearance. In his chest, six symbols were carved, in two rows of three symbols each; the old man couldn't read the symbols, though, as they were foreign to him.

"Behold, old man", said the dragon, "for I have just shown you the secret of the universe; is this not what you are looking for?"

The old man looked surprised. "Forgive me, white dragon", said the man, apologetically, "for I have tripped on the path and I have probably missed it. Could you show it to me again?"

"Tomorrow", said the dragon, and then vanished in the air, as if he had never been there.

The next day arrived, and the man once again walked the path to get a fresh amount of fruits for his breakfast, as if nothing had happened on the day before.

Once again, after collecting his fruits, he tripped on a rock from the ground. And once again, he saw his fruits rolling from his basket and getting scattered in all directions.

Sure enough, when the man rose from the floor, and cleaned his clothes, there stood the white dragon, floating in mid-air, in front of him.

"Behold, old man", said the dragon, "for once again, I have shown you the secret of the universe; is this now what you are looking for?"

Puzzled, the old man went pale "Forgive me, white dragon, for once again I tripped on my way and probably missed it. Could you show it to me again?"

"Very well", said the dragon, "I will show you one last time". And with this, his giant dragon mouth opened, and he let out a great scream. The scream shook the very ground the old man stood on; the trees lost many of their leaves, fruits fell to the floor, fishes were thrown out of the nearby river, and the snow on mountains themselves rolled a few meters below. The old man struggled on the ground, watching everything with fear.

"The time for decision has come", said the dragon, once the scream stopped, "for I have shown you the secret of the universe one last time. I see that you have not yet seen the light, however. From now on, you will not age, and you will not die; your mission will not be finished until you discover the secret of the universe for yourself".

With that said, a mist formed around the dragon, and in an instant, he was gone.

The old man, lost in thought, went back to his house. He didn't take his fruits. He sat down on the middle of his modest hall, and started meditating.

The old man meditated for 12 years. He didn't move; he was too focused on his mission. Like the dragon promised, he didn't age, and he didn't die; he didn't feel hungry, or thirst. He just meditated.

Then, one day, it finally came. He understood what the dragon meant. It was like spotting an island after being lost in the middle of the ocean, like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel; he knew his mission had ended.

He stood up, opened his drawer, and picked paper and brush. His paint hadn't gone dry during those 12 years, and he knew this was the making of the dragon, too.

As fast as he could, he wrote the secrets that had been revealed to him. He did this with expert penmanship, however, as his skills with the pen where already legendary before he decided to live far from civilization.

After being finished, the man went outside of the cabin. It was the first time he saw the sky in 12 years. He went up his usual path to pick up fruits, as he was starting to feel hungry now. After he took the 64th step, he fell to the floor. This time, he didn't trip on any rock, however; he was dead. However, he had a smile in his face as his body lay on the ground: his mission was complete.

His body was never found, as the forest ground made good use of it. Hundreds of years later, however, a Chinese college student was trekking on the same area, and found the old man's cabin. The cabin was old, but was stable. And, standing on the middle of the cabin, were the scrolls the man had written with his expert penmanship; the scrolls that told of the secret of the universe.

The Chinese student, which shall remain nameless, rapidly copied the scrolls by taking pictures of it with his digital camera. After doing that, the scrolls crumbled and disappeared, as if they never had existed.

Going back to his college, the student studied the pictures he had taken. He was surprised the scrolls had really existed and were not a dream of his.

He studied the content of the scrolls for much time. Focusing his college course on programming, the student decided to apply the secrets found on the scrolls to the modern art of programming.

He went on to programming. He coded for 12 days, without sleep. He didn't feel thirsty, and didn't feel hungry.

After the 12th day, he declared the first phase of his project, "Tweener", finished. When he did so, the pictures he had on his camera mysteriously vanished; the images of the scroll containing the secret of the universe were lost forever. He wondered whether that was just a dream.

The secret of the universe, however, is a simple concept, one that is remembered by the Chinese student to this day: There is no interruption in the flow of the universe. A fruit doesn't appear on the ground once it has fallen out of your basket; instead, it travels to that position for a given time. It may bounce back, it may roll down the path a little, but even if you can't stop it from falling, it will still make a transition from the basket state to the ground state.

This concept could be applied to many different situations. The Chinese student chose to apply it to interfaces. By creating tools in which the flow of an interface could be maintained, he did his part in making it more like the universe itself; the human desire for fluidity is not something to be taken lightly.