nce upon a time, there was a Young Intellectual Poet who lived with his friends in a beautiful tower. He loved poems, and read often. One day, he read a Great Poem that imparted to him a deep sense of mystery. Assuming the poem itself must actually be a mystery, he set out to solve the poem. He researched and read, and came up with many theories. His writings on the poem and its meaning were very poetic. People liked what he said, and decided that he understood the poem very well, because they were dazzled by his writing, thinking, and theories.

Heartened, the Young Intellectual Poet began to write poems of his own. Thinking that great poems must necessarily be mysteries to be solved, he began to omit certain parts of his writing and obfuscate others. His poems became cryptograms, rebuses, and riddles. Only he and his friends held the keys to unlock the poems. They also wrote many papers about his poems and other enigmatic poems (for now such was the fashion), again using poetic language and intricate theories.

The people in the village loved the Great Poem that originally inspired the Young Intellectual Poet, because it imparted a sense of mystery to them as well. The new poems coming out of the tower, by contrast, simply confused them. But because it was said that the Young Intellectual Poet was a great artist, they assumed the fault must be with themselves. Gradually, the villagers lost interest in poetry, deciding they were not smart enough for it–except for the few that enjoyed solving riddles. They went off to the tower to study.
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