The Astrologer Who Fell Into a Well

A famous astrologer walked each evening outside town, gazing upward at the stars to study their patterns and make his predictions, so absorbed in the sky above that he paid no attention whatsoever to the ground beneath his own feet.

One evening, deep in thought about a distant constellation, he failed to notice an old well directly in his path and tumbled straight into it, splashing into the cold water below and shouting loudly for help.

A neighbor, hearing his cries, ran over and pulled him out, soaked and shaken. "You claim to read the future written in the stars far above," the neighbor said, only half-joking, "yet you could not see a well right in front of your own feet. Perhaps look down at the world you're actually walking through before you try to read what's written so far above it."