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Letters: The park in the village

Change in Sooke should be progressive not oppressive

ge that had a park.  A group of villagers known as the “Progressives” wanted to build a place in this park where all of the people in the village, and even visitors to the village, could ride their bicycles.  However a very small group of villagers known as the “Opposition,” not wanting the village to change and thinking that the Progressives were “nasty and little,” got very angry about this plan.  The mayor, wanting to pacify the Opposition, decreed that all villagers over the age of eight who rode bicycles shall be cast into the abyss, where the Opposition could not see or hear them.  The mayor believed this would make everybody happy.  However the Opposition still did not want the village to change and continued to be angry. The Progressives were also angry about being cast into the abyss.  Eventually the Progressives stopped caring and moved away, the visitors avoided the village, the village changed for the worse, and the village died. The mayor saw this and exclaimed “Woe is me, for I have let this village die, because I realized too late that one cannot stop change.  I should have embraced change and guided it so that it happened in a progressive manner, despite the opposition of a small number of villagers.”

“If you try to please everyone you will achieve nothing” – Aesop

Tom Myrick

Sook