A philosopher was travelling on a train from Swansea to Tenby. It was a nice journey, but he wasn't happy because his mind was a blank. It was his official job to keep having ideas, but not a single new one had come to him for ages. When he reached his destination he got out of the train with the words, “This is my station.”
As he stood on the platform, he wondered if jumping into the air might help. So he made a pole from the branch of a tree and pole-vaulted over the railway tracks. As he reached the highest point of his immense jump, a new idea finally came to him.
His delight was short lived. On the opposite platform a hippopotamus was waiting for its own train and it happened to be yawning at that exact moment, maybe because it was tired or practicing for a competition. The philosopher landed in its mouth and vanished down its throat and into its stomach, never to be seen again.
¶ Don't get ideas above your station.