There’s a famous folkloric character who shows up across much of the Middle East, in the Balkans, and etc. He goes by various names — e.g., Nasruddin Hoca (pronounced Nas-ru-deen Ho-jah) or Nasreddin Hodja in Turkish, and Mulla Nasruddin, and, in Arabic, Juha (or, in the dialect of Cairo and Lower Egypt), Goha — in hundreds of jokes and little stories. To the extent that there’s a real historical personage behind the anecdotes, which typically portray him as a kind of wise fool, he was probably a Sufi mystic living in Konya, in what is today Turkey.
I’ll call him Goha. I first met him in Cairo.
One day, Goha was out riding his donkey, with his son seated behind him.
A man who passed them on the road said “How cruel! How can a poor little donkey be expected to carry two people at the same time?”
Goha heard the man’s words, and saw his point. So he dismounted and left his son to ride the donkey while he walked alongside.
Another passerby saw them, and loudly remarked that the boy was certainly a disrespectful lad, riding the donkey while obliging his father to walk.
Goha’s son was ashamed. He got off the donkey and told his father to ride on it.
Shortly thereafter, a third man passed by, and vocally remarked that the father was a selfish man, riding the donkey while obliging his young son to walk.
So Goha jumped off of the donkey’s back and, instead, walked alongside his son and the donkey.
After a few minutes, Goha turned to his son and asked, “What should we do, O my son, to please people?”
“The only thing remaining,” the boy said, “is for us to carry the donkey.”
“You’re right,” replied Goha.
So they put the donkey on their backs and proceeded down the road. But people immediately began to laugh at them and to mock them.
Accordingly, Goha and his son climbed back onto the donkey and continued to ride as they had at first.
So much for trying to please critics.
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