Beware! You Could be Cordyceped

 Mystery Of The Long Horned Ants

The forest hides a lot even from the most prying eyes. Most of what we get to see in it is fleeting; what is not fleeting may just be a snapshot and not the full picture. The truth of the forest, a mystery! Today, let us unravel one; the Mystery of the Long Horned Ants!

Each plant species has perfected the art of propagation. When it is season, flowering plants bloom and the forest becomes awash with pollen clouds, each grain in the cloud hoping to find a suitable recipient. Most, not reaching intended locations dry up and die.

A fungus called Ophiocordyceps also sends out spores. Ants are no strangers to the forest. They come out from their colonies to forage. In millions, they crawl all over. Spores of Ophiocordyceps fall on plants, animals and the forest floor. It could also land on ants or they while crawling around could come in contact with it.  

Harmless incident? No; because they are the intended recipient!

If a carpenter ant (camponotus) and a spore gets together, the game changes. As soon as contact is made, the spores drive roots into the hapless host and takes control over its behaviour. Enslaved by the fungus, the afflicted ant has to find a place that offers the right amount of sunlight, temperature and humidity to help the fungus grow; and then in a bizarre final act, gets into a death bite at that precise location ensuring life for its guest. The spore grows into a fungi from the dead ant’s body to spew out spores, infecting another set of ants. The cycle continues. Colonies of ants could get wiped out like this in one season.

Genus Specific

There are more than 400 different species of Cordyceps, each targeting specific species of ants, dragonflies, cockroach, aphids and beetles etc. The story is all similar; the guest enslaves the host and controls its behaviour and eventually kills it.

The process is characterized by the presence of a parasite or parasitoid, a host willingly or unwillingly promoting its growth and at its cost and peril. Often the infection is genus specific.

If you think that this macabre story is confined only to forests or to species other than human beings, you can’t be more wrong. It is played out in and around us, our homes, places of work and in societies we live in. There are many an agent, targeting individuals, groups, sects and other such identities. Don't believe it?

Afflicted Individuals

When it comes to Homo sapiens, individuals are prone to being afflicted by one or multiple agents. Such afflictions are not race or gender specific. Some could be severely debilitating, adversely affecting our personal behaviour and social skills. Few could be even life threatening.

Many amongst us are corrupt. Degree and type notwithstanding, corruption inflicts personal and social costs. Though corruption has almost become a norm, many remorselessly indulge in it. Yet, there still remains an innate fear of being caught. For a few, ‘fear of being caught’ drives its roots and modifies their behaviour. Like the dictated move and death bite of the carpenter ant, the individual is consumed by suspicion. They see shadows even in bright light. Many of them withdraw into shells to shield themselves from prying eyes and leading questions for fear of being exposed. Some become introverted and become conspicuous by their acts, others compulsive liars and few both.

Behaviour and response to situations of many amongst us are driven by mistrust or distrust[1]. Caution is an existential virtue, but when that is fuelled by distrust it can spiral out badly. Such people over time become social misfits, subjects of scorn and eventually force themselves into their own shells and turn recluses.

It is just not only about the corrupt, timid or compulsive liars. There are many others who are similarly afflicted. Fear, guilt, apprehension, anxiety, insecurity, suspicion, greed, melancholy and so many such others; are just names of different genus that have the potential of commanding our minds and modifying our behaviour once they find space with us to rest and root. The most dangerous of all is being infected with a corrosive ideology.

 

Parasitoid

Unlike the empire of the sub-sapiens, we actually could make our infection look wanted. It could even get us inducted into groups we want. Once infected these people actually go around actively seeking to infect others. They are even willing to consume themselves in the process. Anyone opposed to that ideology is considered a threat and is treated appropriately.   That is when it becomes dangerous to societies. Fanaticism emerge like wise. 

 

Infected groups

The holocaust was the culmination of such a spore, rooting in one individual, spreading into others and then infecting the group prompting them to collectively prey on another group. It was not an isolated incident and not one of the past. Every day, across the world there are clouds of such spores of exclusionism infecting localities and regions.

Like Cordyceps, they need hosts and find ingenious ways to create divisions within a population that was otherwise living peacefully. As intensity of affliction increases, lies and falsehood spread at astronomical speeds. Having reached threshold levels, law of the jungle prevails over civility.  Everything that happens, however detached, gets connected and viewed through the spore’s perspective. A narrative is born! Then it is propagated and allowed to gain momentum. Once it attains the momentum threshold, it then catapults on its own with authenticity that truth commands. Social media plays catalyst. Disaster unfolds, slowly first, surely later.

 

Escape?

Insects, cursed merely by coincidence of presence in the area, have no way of shaking the spore away. It is doomed as soon as it comes in contact with the spore! They just can’t reason it out. What about us?

We are not as helpless. We can prevent the spore form driving in roots. It all depends on how well and how ready we are, as individuals or groups to reason it out.

What happens when a people lose sense of rationality?

 

[1] Mistrust and distrust are often considered synonyms but mistrust is a general sense of unease toward someone or something while distrust is usually based on experiences or information. Unfortunately like egg and chicken which manifests first in an individual is hard to decide. Often a learnt behavior both compulsively add to each other

Milk Negativity for Gains

 

Exhortations

The most repeated exhortation in motivational and corporate training circuits is about remaining positive’ irrespective of circumstances. Having been on the circuit, I have done it, many times over.  But talks about positivity is meaningless unless we understand negativity, its contours and content and context.

Negativity is everywhere. Overt or covert in application, crass or sophisticated in execution, words or deeds its manifestation, its existence recognised within or experienced from outside, negativity comes in countless shades and has little in common to call as character. Inseparable companion for some, identity for few, fuel for aggression or weapon of defense for many, we encounter negativity in some form every day.

Interestingly, people reeking of negativity complain most about others’ negativity.

 

Power of Negativity

I realised the power of ‘negativity’, first time in the mathematics class. We were attempting to solve a linear equation. When answers were called in, we found ourselves in two camps. All of us noticed the negative sign but most of us ignored its implications and turned in wrong. The vigilant few who recognised its power took appropriate steps turned in right.

Life is like that; you ignore negativity to your peril. It is omnipresent. Success and happiness to a large extent depends on how well, one can recognise and manage negativity in life’s equations. Unmanaged, it can be overwhelming. Negativity can impact personal life, as also play significant roles in shaping social issues and its outcomes.

Irrespective of its nature and purpose, negativity commences with and from individuals. Whether it is out of an inherent psychological disorder and consequent delinquent compulsions or as an element of purpose, it needs perpetrators and victims; person, persons or groups. Easily weaponised, it can vitiate even the most pristine and benign of environments.

Negativity, becomes a weapon of menacing potency, only if it finds conducive mediums and through them attain the threshold kinetic energy. It is true for individuals, groups, organisations and society.

Weaponising Negativity

Most of us, if not all, suffer from bouts of negativity. It is a natural survival kit that warns us of threats. It kick-starts instincts to survive adversities. Apprehension and anxiety we experience are negativity elements, but extremely useful survival tools. But when negativity persists and becomes the identity and predominant trait of an individual, it is a problem.  Individuals become negative mostly out of unaddressed inadequacies.

Negative outlook, in most cases, is a carryover of abusive childhood, intense physical or psychological trauma suffered anytime in life or flawed upbringing. From the cause and effect perspective, negativity comes from deep sense of insecurity. Responses may vary.

Negative individuals tend to see threat where none exists. Even in the best of situations they can create monsters, play spoilsport, experience discrimination, imagine apocalypse and seed and spread disharmony where such eventualities are otherwise impossible. Some of them do it deliberately and others do it by compulsion. Low on self-esteem,  most of them unsocial and at times anti-social, some withdraw into shells they create, few turn quarrelsome and violent but most are content being selfish and manipulative; and seem to gain immense pleasure even from small acts of disturbances they cause. Mistrust and being untrustworthy are sure signs of deep-rooted negativity. Education, economic status, job profiles or place in the social ladder don’t matter.  Apparently leading normal lives and earning livelihoods, they infect the environment they live in.

Look around; one may find such people.

Negative people seldom recognise their plight. Most of them live in denial, oblivious to their own misery and the misery they spread. Few weaponise it to achieve short-term objectives oblivious to long-term losses.  When others are inconvenienced because of them, they become convinced of the effectiveness of their strategy, only to compound their illness further. Those who can, avoid them and those who can’t, suffer fait accompli.

 

Harvest From Negative Narratives

Negativity is contagious and easily spreads through association. It is the most effective means to get messages across big audiences.

It is natural to view existential threats with apprehension. If such a narrative is created and propagated, it spreads and grips the community. Each individual, if not extremely diligent, by instinct becomes a medium and diligence is a rarity.  More the mediums, more virulent becomes negative narratives. Initially only a few may add content but as is wont, mass gets added arithmetically in the beginning, geometrically then and imaginatively exponential thereafter. 

There are people who thrive milking negativity. Many politicians and religious teachers, world over, exploit their ‘subjects’ deliberately injecting negativity. When the group is fed narratives of an impending doom, mostly conjured and propped up with lies dressed as truth, the threat looks real. The group, then naturally listens. Those who bite the bait not only believe in the ‘negative’ but go around baiting others. World across, the wily have come to power using this magic formula.  

Once ‘we’ and ‘they’ are defined, minds become fertile grounds for negativity. Almost all contemporary political campaigns across the world effectively uses negativity to garner votes. Social media proliferation is a boon for virulent spread of such narratives. Spreading fear about after-life consequences or threat from other religions or even sects within, some religious leaders harvest money, fame and power from negativity.  Growth of most cults, if mapped, often reveal underlying threads of ‘negative’ narratives

Group-negativity, initially is confined to words. However it soon turns into deeds and left unmanaged become reprisals against the ‘other’. The silent many who remained content being spectators sooner than later become participants and perpetrators. The holocaust is a grim reminder to humanity of what negative narratives can yield but time seems to have numbed our senses.

Ironic but true; though negativity starts when objective logic fails, its only logical reasoning that can put an end to negativity. Unfortunately, reasoning dies a few deaths with those taken in by negativity. It is not only the illiterate, ignorant poor that make the gullible crowd but even educated well-placed individuals stream-in, “ever hearing but never understanding”, “ever seeing but never perceiving”.

Is there a way out of the marauding negativity?

 

The Equation

Constructing cause and effect equations to understand situations help deal with negativity. But people drowned in negativity seldom see the life-rope. Persistent chipping away at the causative factors does help but negatives have a strange overpowering presence.

A blot on a clean apparel, however small catches the eye first.  Despite the large clean canvas around the blot often refuses to let the eyes go. Notional or imaginary losses have the same impact. Having made riches off paltry investments, people fret about the falling stock indices. Industrialists, taking their own lives having suffered losses, would not have thought even once about the growth they charted their way up and the huge growth possibilities ahead. Engrossed in the web of negativity they spin about themselves, they distance themselves from any meaningful help only to be fatally consumed.

It is absolutely normal, to feel the burden of negativity. It is good to be aware of the negative within. Willingness to accept its presence within and address it helps us turn in right at the end of the linear equation. Ability to identify negativity outside increases the probability of successfully negotiating it.

The equation is simple, straight and linear. Whoever has eyes, let them see!

 

THE ULTIMATE SECRET OF ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS

 

Truth Not always Obvious 

Prima facie, M[1] is ‘just another’ employee of the firm. He was one amongst the 20, I was hired to train. Outwardly shy, to the point of being withdrawn, he spoke only when asked to.

But, as the session progressed and activities rolled out, I saw him, a different person. He was the natural ‘centre of gravity’ and literally made group activities come through. Though everyone in the group was individually brilliant and did their very best, both individually and collectively, his sense of commitment to the group and accomplishing the task was palpable. He was commitment personified. As I stood watching the group[2] strive and accomplish various tasks assigned, I realised I was witnessing a group’s success mantra unfold at work. 

Profitability and Productivity 

Profitability is an inevitable survival-ingredient for organisations involved in commercial activities. Business strategists consider productivity and profitability as inseparable Siamese twins and spin survival and growth strategies around the dictum ‘higher the productivity better the profitability’. Most fly by night operators and even some mega brands pitch all their efforts only for profits in sight. They never realise that profits alone don’t define brand value. 

Confined to productivity-profitability linear relationship, management machinery gets down to the act of conjuring numbers, which if achieved would ensure bottom-lines that is ‘owner’s pride’[3] and graphs that could be ‘competitors’ envy’. Such numbers, once approved are driven down the hierarchy. However, in its journey downstream to the foot soldiers, the numbers start bloating up unrealistically. Everyone in the chain generously adds his or her bit of cushion. Managerial activity becomes creating, crunching and controlling numbers, accompanied by carrots and sticks. Fudging and cheating is common in such an environment. 

Carrot and Stick 

Organisations, to ensure productivity and profitability, arm themselves with sweeping powers to reward performers and weed out non-performing assets. Those who manage to reach stipulated targets survive to struggle the next quarter or fiscal, those who don’t, end up being discards. However, magicians who tame the unassailable, with numbers beyond targets are differentially rewarded. 

Crunch numbers right, convert it to targets, assign it to people, get them to achieve it. Reward those who comply, jettison non-performers overboard and ride to eternal profitability! It sounds almost like a fail-proof strategy? No. Companies fail, flail and vanish. Even ruthless titans have bitten dust! 

Compliance Don’t Guarantee Success? 

Stipulated outputs demand compliance with instructions on standards, procedures and all aspects of roles assigned including targets to be achieved. These are arrived at after due deliberations. If compliance was the key to success; then operational viability and profits should have lasted till eternity. It doesn’t happen. If retrenchment was a remedy, human resources discarded based on competence should not have found acceptance outside and head hunting would cease to exist. 

Clearly there’s something more to success or failure than compliance; something not very obvious yet existential. It is commitment. Commitment of individuals to the cause of the organisation is the soul that keeps entities going. Close look at the trajectory of organisations that have survived adverse conditions like recessions wars and political witch-hunts, reveal that there were more than a handful of committed individuals who stood firm and steered it through rough seas and storms to greater glory.   

Incidentally, that sense of commitment I witnessed playing out as the group I was training, attempted to complete the task assigned. Seeing them operate, I knew this company is bound to make waves. 

Compliance versus Commitment 

Adhering to instructions and standards is what compliance is all about. It is merely execution of what is expected. Compliance has a legal connotation and brings along accountability, mostly legal. Compliance is closely associated with rewards and individual growth in hierarchy. It is a demand that has to be met and failure has a cost associated. Commitment goes far beyond compliance. 

Commitment is all about ownership and sense of belonging. It instils an additional sense of responsibility. It elevates individuals from being mere employees to being owners. The committed need mentors not supervisors. Commitment is an attitude that breeds a two-way trust system and often considered a personal trait. 

Cultivating Commitment 

Commitment, though an inborn personal trait, can be cultivated and nurtured by organisations to reap dividends. But for that to happen, organisational culture must be holistically conducive. Functional and progressive organisations invariably have few committed individuals spread across verticals. They are Islands of ownership and cannot be considered as products of organisational culture. 

For an organisation to be reap rewards of employee-commitment, majority of its employees must feel and shoulder ownership. Many companies allot shares to its employees to inculcate ownership and ensure retention. However, equating ‘sense of ownership’ with ‘owning shares’ is the biggest fallacy in vogue. This model of lured allegiance is being aggressively propagated. Unfortunately, ‘commitment on sale’ will move towards better prices. After all, that was not commitment to start with. Monetising everything and handing over a document to establish claim on the company's assets and profits do not instil or cultivate commitment. 

Commitment is a sublime, amorphous entity that commences existence beyond lure and monetary rewards. It starts and ends with emotions. It defines how central an organisation is to the individual’s existential wellbeing. The easiest and the surest way of cultivating commitment is recognition of an individual as the organisation and driving home, his irreplaceable role and impact on organisational goals. When an individual feels his relevance in an organisation, commitment is mostly the outcome. Yes, there would be some who may ride it rough. But those would be exceptions and can be taken care of.

---

[1] Real name of the individual kept guarded for sake or privacy. My enquiry about him later revealed that he is a very valuable asset of the company and makes his presence felt across verticals. 

[2] The dreamers’ group, design and convert our fantasies into working electronic devices! 

[3] Inspired by the tagline from an advertisement of a Television that has become extinct. Ironic though!

Once More, One Last Time

 

The Last Run

The aircraft had been on the search and rescue mission for quite some time. The sailor ‘over board’ had still not been spotted. The crew had done whatever they could have, but to no avail. The weather wasn’t great and the sun, too was about to drown. The captain could feel the knots in his stomach. A sense of defeat filled the cockpit. It was time to call off  the mission and set course for the base. 

He took a hard look at all those dials in front. The fuel onboard could hold them up a little while more. Something within told him, “May be, one more run, One last run…”

He then took a long deep breath and spoke into his radio "Running once more, One last time”.

The aircraft banked and turned right back into search and the crew pressed itself to the mission one last time, It was now or never.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere appeared, someone, bobbing in the seas below.

'One last time' and a life saved. A decision that snatched life from the jaws of death. 

 

Neither Fiction Nor Miracle

In fact, it’s a story often witnessed, albeit in different forms by almost anyone who has been part of extreme search and rescue missions. Good or bad, the outcome, it is only the headlines that remain in our memory. The superhuman efforts that made it possible, is invariably overshadowed by euphoria around victorious rescues.

“Baby saved alive from rubbles after twelve days”. “Children saved alive from flooded cave after 18 days”. There are so many such headlines across the world every day! Nobody talks of the one who 'decides' to stick on and if at all done, not for long.

Such rescues are not just miracles but the end pieces of ‘never give up’ acts of dedication. When conditioning and conditions compel almost everyone to give up, there could be one, just one, who refuses to give up; the one, who wants to take ‘one more run, one last run’. 

It is the courage of that one person, who calls for that ‘one more, one last attempt’ and his/her will to push the envelope of hope beyond the normal that forces victory. Hope, is the most valued asset, in the midst of despair

But does every such ‘last run’ yield results? Sometimes, yes. Certainly not always.

 

The Web Not Attempts That Matter

Our elders told us the story of King Bruce and the spider and taught us that perseverance produces success". We were told to attempt and reattempt, so that one day we could succeed. 

Success doesn't necessarily come from repeatedly attempting something that we have repeatedly failed in. It is foolish to reinforce failure. It is worse to persevere with repeated failures, for each failure dents self-esteem and ebbs the will to go forward. It kills us from within and pulls us down in our own eyes and others too.

There is none yet born who hasn't failed. He who claims having not tasted defeat ever, is a liar. Preceding every success, would be innumerable failures. The ability to, draw lessons from each failure, identify own flaws and challengers’ strength, understand situations and its demands, see and seize opportunities besides capability and willingness to rework strategies separate the successful from others. Failure offers us the chance to reattempt and win, provided we are willing to learn and course correct.

We were told that King Bruce, motivated by his ‘spider guru’, vanquished his enemies in his seventh attempt. We were never told nor did we ever bother to see through, that the story was less about the number of his reattempts but more about the craft of creating better webs (traps) to lure the enemy into his chosen killing fields.

Our story should be less about repeated attempts and more about pursuit of our aims with better preparation after every failure.

Ignorance and Perseverance

Known or unknown to us, there are many factors that influence the course of our daily lives. We have control over few. We have no control over many. But worse, we think we have no control over very many. Here lies the catch.

Awareness about our strengths and weaknesses helps. We naturally associate limitations with expectations and therefore tend to pitch our aims low. It is terrible to be held back by awareness of our weaknesses. Unfortunately, we are conditioned to under- pitch and so underperform once we become aware of our limitations. Knowledge of own weaknesses must not result in lower aims and expectations, but propel us to address and find ways to overcome those limitations.

Not every limitation originates within. Many are passed on to us by beliefs and practices. These are yokes that bind us to the millstones of poor expectations. It takes a lot of courage to break free of such shackles.

On the other hand, one could be blissfully unaware of such constricting norms. It is then heroes like Cliff Young emerge. Such ignorance doesn’t bleed one’s efforts to push oneself far beyond the normal and set standards for others to follow. Ignorance is bliss only in such cases.

 

The Inner Voice

To expect all labour to bear fruit, is vanity. Not to attempt for fear of failure is foolishness. It’s only by committing and persisting can one achieve success. Failure is an omnipresent truth. The knowledge, where, when and how much to labour is wisdom. To rise from failure is courage.

The wise and mighty too, are not insulated from failure. Each failure comes with innumerable valuable lessons. It is important to see lessons in failure and learn from it. Ability to learn from others’ mistakes is a divine gift and learning from own mistakes, human yet wise. Perseverance is not just about being at it. It is more about relentless application with continuous learning, course corrections and choice of appropriate means. There is a voice within us that tells us where and when to stop.

Listen carefully.

The voice, even when faint, is felt by the wise. Many remain deaf even when it is loud enough to be heard by everyone else.

Fortunately, one can easily train oneself to be wise!

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Watch Out! This Solution Too Could Be A Problem Soon!

 

Solutions! Really?

The earth is infested with discarded PET bottles and plastic carry bags. Bobbing along waves, choking waterways and making up most of landfills, each piece a folly of mankind. Micro plastics have invaded potable water and aqua marine food source and our existence contaminated. Plastics, once touted as the solution to many a problem, have become the most pervasive environmental risk! Solution becoming a problem?

Computers determine how we live, whether we use it ourselves or not. It is deployed even to influence our thoughts and emotions, thereby dictating our choices and actions, in ways beyond what we can fathom. Nothing is beyond the reach of these binary logic machines. While we enjoy benefits of information technology applications, we also suffer unstoppable loss of privacy and hopeless dependence. Control of mankind is slowly coming to rest at the mercy of these machines. Once purely meant for mathematical applications, they now evoke both awe and shock with what it can do. Just one machine and a pair of mad hands, things could truly go haywire! Another solution becoming a problem?

National and international politics, business, economics, science, governance, in fact every possible field relevant to human existence has a history of problems incarnating as solutions.

You think it is restricted only to such mega issues?

Take a close look at one’s personal life!  

Many current problems might have roots in those very solutions that one might have adopted. Toxic relations, broken marriages, financial losses, stress and strain and maybe every personal problem could be the by-product of a ‘solution’ adopted.

Can’t find it? Maybe one is not looking close enough.

 

Longevity of Solutions

Solution is an answer to a problem, the means chosen amongst available or generated choices to mitigate a situation. Both, the process of generating choices and choosing one amongst them, are input dependent and time relevant. To a large extent it depends on our understanding of the problem, its root causes and implications. Longevity of the solution’s relevance depends primarily on the designer’s ‘etiognosis - diagnosis- prognosis’ skills.

Change inputs, solutions differ. Change time coordinates solutions become irrelevant. It is impossible to create fit-all solutions relevant for all times to come. Does it mean that, there are no perfect solutions? Yes; almost impossible.  Then what?

 

Designing Solutions

There is always the probability of having missed an input or a chance to get more inputs about the problem at hand. Waiting for all possible inputs to emerge for designing solutions could indefinitely delay finalising solutions and render it irrelevant. Inadequacy of inputs and urgency of situations are challenges to finding solutions. Securing acceptance and implementation is no less challenging.

Ability to diagnose problems and pinpoint causative factors help understand situations. Most have it in fair measure, or so we think. Prognostic skills help visualise how situations unfold in time. Most claim to have it, so they think. Application of the three skills helps us design practical solutions. Solutions that transcend time make visionaries out of mortals who designed them. But, not even the best solution is timeproof.

Solutions that reap instant relief, receive instant traction, wide acceptance and garner followers to defend. But over time, popular support notwithstanding, efficacy of solutions diminishes and flaws become glaring and undefendable. Even the best thought solution could sometime become a problem by itself.

Why do solutions become problem?

 

Confirmation Bias?

A solution becomes a problem, when it has lost its relevance but is still allowed to continue its redundant existence. Circumstances that necessitated its birth would have long ceased to exist but solutions continue to persist. Local, regional, national and international landscapes are littered with such solutions.

Persistence to continue with it rather than discarding it might be due to economic, political administrative or other compulsions. The whole world knows about plastic-contamination. Yet, we continue producing it by the tonnes each day. Why? Economic and political reasons? Greed and inability? Inertia or fear? Personal problems likewise have definite reasons. Why not reconsider? Ego or inability? All listed and unlisted reasons are fuelled by confirmation bias, cognitive in nature.

Prevalent all over and residing in all of us, confirmation bias is powerful enough to create and sustain disputes and misunderstandings. We tend to favourably reason for what we, believe in, are used to, support or hold sacred. Though there could be serious flaws in what we believe in, support or practice, we tend to be blind to its cons and deaf to reasons against, often knowingly. Confirmation bias lethally compromises our etiognosis-diagnosis-prognosis skills. Since society, as a matter of contemporary practice responds aggressively to opinions that do not conform to those held by the voice of the powerful, confirmation bias, the easy safe way ahead, thrives.

 

Beat The Bias

Success of the Wright brothers is attributed to their ability to endlessly argue, but constructively, about what each thought and believed in. This essentially snuffed out confirmation bias. Ruthlessly contested ideas gave wings to their dreams.

Ideation unless vigorously contested, tend to be short-sighted, flawed and hence hopelessly short-lived. Allurements or fear of repercussions keep things going till they can persist. Eventually they fall apart. Ideologies, and empires have fallen.

The best way for a solution to remain relevant for long is to remain linked to times. That necessitates changes as per diktats of changing inputs. Solutions are mere inanimate processes. The key lies with the man behind it!

 

Give It Up

It is human to be emotionally attached to ideas and decisions, though it may not be the best way forward. Normally we don’t take kindly to criticism of our ideas. It is often considered a personal affront. With career, livelihood or even existence at stake, most do not express reservations. Many use the opportunity to curry favours and harvest benefits by singing praises. Wisdom easily differentiates!

If one is willing to throw ideas to the wolves, the best would survive. The easiest way is to detach oneself from one’s own ideas. Willingness to accept existence of better view and perception helps everything but ego. It needs us to tune into actively listening without being hurt. It needs us to dissent without hurting. Craving for success and its ownership is better served if solutions emerge post contest.  

It can happen, only if we are willing to give up ownership of our ideas!

Points to Ponder

Why do societies continue with  discriminative practices although everyone speaks against it? 

Why do people preach but not practise?

Inability? Convenience to few  at the cost of others?

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KUPA MANDUKA: DISMISS DIVERGENCE AND DIFFERENCES MALIGNING A FROG

 The Exchange

“Kupa Manduka”! (Frog in the well). 

The trailing text was loud and emphatic!

Though the reference was to self-admitted limitations and the usage purportedly for himself, it left a sour taste. Was it just self-depreciatory idiom or a snub and beyond?

A different opinion, a divergent view, expressed politely on a benign subject like ‘charity’ eliciting an uncharitable response, though self-accusatory, from someone[1] with excellent command on the language, was surprising. Condemnation of a divergent view and its proponent? Inability or unwillingness to accommodate discussion? A novel method of typecasting the opponent as illiterate, unaware and blind to the ways of the new world and therefore unfit to continue discussion?

Such retorts are weapons of intimidation or call to shut up, often deployed to silence opponents in political discourses. But, in a benign discussion its is certainly out of place even if it was used self-depreciatingly.

Regardless, of the purpose and for whom it was meant, “Kupa Manduka”, is now considered derogatory!

The Famous One

The most famous public reference to ‘Kupa Manduka’, 'the frog-in-the -well' came from Swami Vivekananda, on 15 September 1893, at the Parliament of the world's religion at the Art Institute of Chicago. Swami Vivekananda was essentially attempting to acquaint the delegates with the state of impermeable confinement people subject themselves to, with dogmas, preventing them from understanding the ‘other point of view’.

The story is about a poor frog, who grew up in a well and had seen nothing beyond it. Another frog, from the sea, somehow came into the well. The discussion, between the two, reveals how the frog in the well finds it difficult to accept the existence of the world outside. The story moves forward through the dignified two-way communication between the two. As the well-frog bares its ignorance and lack of exposure to the vast world outside, the sea-frog neither castigates it for its deplorable level of ignorance and inability to fathom the vastness of the sea nor does it boast of its origins or claim any high grounds of wisdom. Both frogs, though convinced of their positions, are open to discussion. As the story progresses, the sea-frog persists and succeeds to motivate the well-frog to leave the well and explore the world.

Few Other Frogs

There are other ‘frog-in-the-well’ stories. Although the protagonist remains the well-frog, the guests are different and so are the outcomes.

According to a Taiwanese folktale, it was a yellow sparrow that talks to the frog and helps it experience the world beyond the well. In Alvin Tresselt’s story, the frog, driven by a drying well, dwindling food supplies and possible hunger overcomes his fears to venture out. Unlike other stories where there is an external entity to show the mirror, motivate and provide a way out, here adversity seeds the desire to explore and the fire within sets it free of its confines.

Frogs in all these stories, are well-dwellers not by choice but by events beyond its control. Its inability to understand the unseen world and its complexities are not its own creation. It makes peace with the world it knows and can comprehend. He hasn’t been adequately exposed. With the appropriate intervention he is able to free himself from his confines.

Unfair in Perpetuity

Over time and with usage the ‘frog-in-the-well’ has been vilified as ignorant and unwilling to accept anything new, a cruel contradiction to the truth. Though, the frog, constrained by circumstances in all the stories leave its comfort zone, the well for uncertain new world, we continue to brand it as ignorant, petty and narrow minded. Our own impatience, ignorance, propensity to jump to conclusions and lack of empathy perpetuating injustice on all the ‘frogs in the wells across the world?

Perpetuating Unfairness

This, unfortunately, is the story that is repeated every day, in every society. Driven by some queer sense of superior knowledge and unaware of the constraints of the other, fuelled by impatience, filled with ignorance we pre-judge individuals, groups and societies based on their surroundings and origins. Anybody, with a different thought, could easily be labelled Kupa Manduka.

Such an attitude to diverging views, incongruent opinions, differences in ideologies and disagreements in discussions, with someone who has the wherewithal to inflict damage to the opponent can have serious consequences for individuals and society. Even without such powers, this attitude has great potential to wreak havoc in interpersonal or intra organisational transactions. 

Irrespective of how good or bad, confining or liberating one’s environment may be, isn’t there a world outside to be explored, experienced, and understood? Then isn’t each one who settles to makes peace with one’s state of existence a Kupa Manduka?

Challenging Status Quo Stability

It’s natural for everything to settle down, over time, making peace with its surrounding. Inertia is naturally tempting. Conditions may be trying, limiting or even stifling, yet individuals adapt and accept. We eventually gravitate towards status quo, driving ourselves into the deeply limiting and dangerously confining wells.

Even slavery and other discriminative practices have been accepted as fate by generations. It wasn’t surprising to see blacks opposing slavery, or women protesting abolishment of Sati. ‘Status-quo-ism’ provides familiarity and builds comfort zones promoting internalisation and acceptance of debilitating conditions as inevitable truth.

Change, in its wake, brings turbulent uncertainty. It needs immense fire with in to overcome inertia and fathomless reserves of motivation to sustain the quest. It is only when one dares to question the status quo, that possibilities outside the familiar appear.

It takes a proverbial ‘sea-frog’ or a ‘yellow sparrow’ to motivate people, show them the light ahead and egg them to explore, and experience the horizons and beyond. All socio-political reforms and science and technology developments happened because someone became the sea-frog and helped challenge the status quo.

Sea Frog and Yellow Sparrow

Organisations, societies and Nations periodically need sea-frogs or yellow sparrows to hold mirrors, persist and convince others of a better world outside. The propensity to label and therefore shut out possibilities is cruelty of a different kind. Depreciatingly labelling oneself a ‘Kupa Manduka’ too is a crime, though against one’s own self.

Come to think of it, ‘Kupa Manduka’ is a state of denied opportunities for no fault of that person. Cutting out a differing voice, an incongruent logic labelling it ‘Kupa Manduka’, is either incompetence of the labeller to continue the discourse or sheer intolerance.

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[i] With no malice whatsoever, my gratitude to the individual for providing the seed for this article.