Valuable
Once upon a time, the Emperor hosted a banquet. Some of his
guests dined with cutlery and plates made of gold; but his most honored guests
dined with cutlery and plates made of a metal even rarer than gold; element 13,
known as Aluminum.
After the banquet, the servants piled the gold and aluminum
plates into the kitchen sink; and there gold whispered to aluminum, “How does
it feel to be one of the valuable metals?”
Aluminum said, “But valued for what? My lightness? My
strength? My ductility? My protective oxide coating? No, just my rareness!”
Gold said, “What more do you need? Look at me! Who cares
that I’m ductile, nonreactive and conductive? I’m rare, so I rule the world!”
Aluminum said, “That’s not what I want.”
Thirty years later electrochemists learned how to extract
aluminum from bauxite cheaply by the tonne. A century later a railway worker
laid his gold retirement watch next to a can of beer. There gold whispered to
aluminum, “They have cheapened you.”
Aluminum said, “Yes! I am beer cans, baseball bats, lawn
chairs, airplanes and foil! They use me, they use me up, I am everywhere!”
Gold said, “You are common. You are worthless.”
Aluminum said, “I am useful!
And they love me for what I am!”
Gold
started to weep.
Aluminum
said, “There, there, someday you too will be cheap…”
Moral: Better to serve
than to reign.
Comment: Poor blondie! So fiercely desired, so jealously guarded, but not for its own virtues, only for keeping score! So lonely!
Whereas
aluminum is happy, and why? Because aluminum is the People’s metal!
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