Everyone who's ever lived has heard the stories--our ancients and elders speak of a far away place beyond the brutal desert sands, out past the remotest oasis, and beyond the edge of the Known where there springs a fountain of everlasting life; where grows a tree of the sweetest fruit, which is said to fill one with intense joy; and where each weary traveller is rewarded a "pearl of great price", a prize most desirable above all. The elders spoke of this land from the records of our fathers. They spoke of those who had come before us--how many a wide-eyed wanderer had set off on the journey, fully- (if not over-) confident in his or her abilities to best the desert's perils, to traverse the sands by his own strength and to reach the blessed home, only to return dejected, battered, and spent.
Far worse, we knew, were the tales of those who encountered the ruthless bandits who hid amongst the dunes and rocks, waiting for unsuspecting travellers to fall victim to their insatiable lust for carnage and treasure; only a few survivors ever returned to tell the tragic stories of their less-fortunate friends. Truly it was a perilous journey, one fraught with danger and uncertainty--who was to say if any of the travellers ever actually found the place of legend, where they could rest from all care and sorrow?
Thus, you can understand when my friends and relatives balked at my announcement that I, too, wished to brave the desert, to embark on the quest to find the pearl of great price. They asked me to reconsider:
"How can you be so certain such a prize exists? No one has ever returned to show us the pearl or give us of the fruit! You'll die in the desert chasing after a fantasy, a disappointed, unfulfilled wretch."
"Life here in the village is so much more fulfilling than getting chased by bandits and snakes and eating cactus and bugs. Now go clean out the cow stalls--they stink."
