The frog and the well

Fazal suggested I translate this blogpost into English so he can share it with people who don‘t speak German too.

During a conversation with my German learning friend Fazal, he told me a story that one of his university professors had told him. Ever since then we use this story to describe situations concerning migration. This is the story, all illustrations have been made with OpenAI and some of my corrections:

A baby frog falls into a deep well. He grows up down there thinking that that was the whole world. And so he is content with what he‘s got.

One day another frog who has spent all his life outside falls into the same well.

The frog from the outside is terribly unhappy down there because he cannot get back up and outside. But the frog from the well cannot understand why. To him the well is the whole world, he doesn‘t have any concept of freedom, sunlight and all the things that the other frog is missing so badly. On the other hand, the frog from the outside cannot understand how one can live the way that the frog from the well does.

Looking for a positive ending to this story I found the following three variations:

Happily ever after?

While I was creating the illustrations above, ChatGPT suggested the following happy ending:

It starts to rain so hard that the water in the well rises until the two frogs are able to leave the well. The frog from the outside takes the frog from the well to his pond and there they live happily ever after.

New doesn‘t necessarily mean better

When I told this story to more people I was presented with two other variants for a possible ending of this story:

Variation 1: No, thank you

What if the frog from the well saw things outside that are not so great? Maybe he sees injustice, envy or violence that he didn‘t know in his world?

Maybe freedom isn’t worth it for him and so he jumps back into his own world inside the well?

UPDATE 1: A reader pointed out that the frog cannot get back into his own world because the water has risen. So this story is the beginning anyway and doesn‘t end here.

UPDATE 2: Someone else then suggested the frog might go and find another deep well to jump in.

Variation 2: Bird food

And what about the dangers out there that the frog from the well is not used to? What if he cannot enjoy the pond and sunlight for a long time because he gets eaten by a heron Would it be worth it or should he have stayed in the well in the first place?

Which ending would you chose?
Or do you have another variation?

UPDATE 3: After reading this story, my friend Olena reminded me of a similar story that I illustrated too:

Illustrations: Open AI and my own corrections
Go to German original version