Cry Wolf

I am sure everyone is familiar with the fact that to 'cry wolf' means that one is raising a false alarm; and that the phrase originates from one of Aesop's fables about the boy who cried wolf. In these times, one is so unsure about exactly how many widely variant versions of any given story - even fables - are floating around. So, before starting on my usual learned dissertation, I will first give the version that I shall base it upon.

A Shepherd boy, who was bored of monotonously watching over a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" When his neighbors came rushing to help him, he laughed at them for their pains. Then, a wolf really came. Alarmed and terrified, the boy, shouted, "Help! The wolf is really here, killing the sheep" but no one paid any heed to his screams for help. The wolf leisurely destroyed the flock of sheep.

The moral of the story was that a liar would not be believed even when he spoke the truth. Those were days when things all seemed black and white, apparently, so it suited the people of that day to leave it at that.

The problem, these days, is that what is truth is, itself, a subject of debate. I mean, like if that boy screamed, 'Wolf!', you rushed out to help him and found a puppy mewling in front of the flock, how do you react the next time he screams? HE may be sure that it IS a wolf, YOU are just as sure that it is a puppy, so do you truly think that the next time he screams, you will be sure that it is a wolf this time? The third time? The fourth time?

You see, these are the days of 'my truth' and 'your truth' and we do not restrict that application ONLY to the interpretation of the facts (which is what I thought it was supposed to mean) but to the facts themselves. Einstein himself would be surprised by how much we have taken his relativity to heart, seeing how we seem to consider all facts as relative.

As for interpretations...well, in the days I used to work (AND I DID, you miserable heckler) there was this time when the interest rates on bonds shot up to 16-18% (Cross my heart! I am NOT fantasizing) and I applied a lower interest rate for my projections for a 15 year project. The flak I ran into was unbelievable with the conclusive argument from the other side being 'When have the interest rates ever gone down?'. People use the past as a guideline for the future in their own way and THAT becomes their truth. (You think I can tell those chaps 'I told you so', now? Well, IF they are relatively fair, all they would say is 'I didn't tell you they would not fall, then'. If they are not inclined to any fairness, I'd find that it was I, after all, who was obdurately arguing that the interest rates would not fall while they were desperately trying to convince me that they would.)

Or take the time when I went to a senior IAS officer trying to convince him about our point of view with regard to an Industry policy. The man says, 'You guys are sharp and, whatever you propose, has some hidden benefit to you to the detriment of the government. So...' There! Argue against that if you will. The lesser he finds in the proposal which unfairly favors the Industry, the more he is convinced that there is some deep skulduggery going on. Truth, then, can move diametrically opposite to the facts when processed by humans! (The interesting sidelight on human nature is that they can be absolutely convinced about their negative judgment of your character, while they are never sure about their own analysis of your proposals. Gut feeling trumps brains, almost always, even if it is only indigestion that gives you that pain in the gut.)

Where was I? Ah! Between facts and interpretation of the facts, what is 'truth' differs from person to person. So, when you repeatedly cry 'wolf', and the rest of the crowd sees either nothing or a puppy or whatever, it does you no good to hug to yourself the conviction that they are all fools and there is a wolf there really. Not if you want them to help you drive away the wolf when it attacks the flock. Of course, if all you want is to be convinced of your own superiority...Do not, then, be surprised to be clubbed together with conspiracy theorists for they, too, are convinced that they know truths to which the rest of the populace are blind.

And it does not help if you cry wolf even when you yourself see only a puppy. Exaggerate the danger a few times and it works just the same as crying wolf when no wolf is there.

And I have not even started on whether everyone sees 'danger' the same way. (Don't worry, I do not intend to start...now.)

Crying Wolf is something that needs more careful handling, especially when you are dealing with metaphorical wolves. If, indeed, you truly wish to safeguard the flock from the wolf.

Else, of course, you can surround yourself with people who see a wolf where you do and cry in chorus with you!

Old Fables New Morals : The Ant and the Grasshopper

It is normal for tales with morals to make children hate the 'moral' character of the story. Like the guy in your class who is held up as an example for you to emulate, moral characters seem to exist only to allow parents to tell you how disappointing you are. But our dear chap, Aesop, seems to have missed by a wide margin when he wrote 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' to teach morals. I mean, leave alone children, one helluva lot of adults seem to have taken against the hero of the moral here.

The tale goes like this

The Ant was busy scurrying around all Summer, collecting grains to tide over Winter. Seeing the Grasshopper singing happily, the Ant told him to spend some time storing grains for Winter.

In late autumn, as the Ant was drying out the grain it had stored up during the summer, the starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.

"What?" cried the Ant in surprise, "Haven't you stored anything away for the winter like I asked you to? What were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone."

The Ant shrugged its shoulders in disgust.

"Making music, were you?" it cried. "Very well; now dance!" And it turned its back on the Grasshopper and went on with its work.

The moral, apparently, is that 'There's a time for work and a time for play' or some such noble thing. Going by a story that no less than Somerset Maugham wrote, all that the fable communicated to him was such a hatred for ants that he went stomping on every ant he saw, after reading the fable. And was pushed into writing a sort of anti-fable, where the hardworking 'ant brother' ends up poorer than the happy-go-lucky 'grasshopper brother' who becomes rich by virtue of marrying a rich woman. Now THAT is the morality tale the world wants - like teaching children to drop out of school and spend time in garages with a view to becoming a billionaire!

At that Aesop got off cheap. Thanks to having lived in a time when social media was not a thing. If he had written it now...

"So...this wuss thinks that the arts are no use? And artists should be allowed to starve?"

"This Aesop is a right-wing fanatic. To praise the virtues of hoarding and allowing poor people to starve..."

"What do you expect? Typical capitalistic behavior. The rich becoming richer and preaching elimination of poverty by killing off the poor."

And so on and so on. Maugham's character only stomped on ANTS. Had it been today, we would have stomped on AESOP!

To be sure, the Ant did have a communication issue. I mean, 'Very well, dance' sounds too much like 'If they do not have bread, let them eat cake." Not really the image that you want to project to the public. But, then, Aesop lived in times when PR was not a thing, I suppose, leave alone Social media. If you had wealth or power, you really did not need to bother with diplomacy with people less well-endowed than you. It was probably EXPECTED that you would be arrogant, failing which people would take you for a easy mark and rob you blind.

So, perhaps, Aesop's Ant, in modern times, would have said something like, "Look, I worked all Summer and just managed to store enough food to keep my family from starving through Winter. If I share with you, my children will starve later in the season. I am sorry." AND, perhaps, give the grasshopper the idea that he could, perhaps, crowd-fund his food and keep from starvation!

Essentially, the Ant would DO only what it anyway DID...refuse the grasshopper food. The difference between becoming a hero or a villain is only in what it SAYS...not in what it DOES!

The moral of the fable...more to the point, the moral of the reaction to the fable...is really this:

When you are unwilling to help, nothing gets you more widely hated than telling 'I told you so'. It seems too much like kicking a man when he is down.

Old Fables New Morals - The Goatherd and the Wild Goats

You know, there are these times from Aesop got quite the wrong moral from his own fables. Yeah, I know that I did say once earlier that adults makes a mess of learning morals from stories but for the very guy, who is messing up with children's minds by telling stories with morals, to get it wrong...

Take this one, for example, about the goatherd and the wild goats. This chappie, apparently, went out with his goats and a snowstorm hit the place. Finding some wild goats also in trouble, he drove them also to his place. Intending to entice them to stay with him, he fed them better than his own goats for as long as the snowstorm lasted. When the snowstorm stopped storming, the wild goats scampered away. Hearing the goatherd fuming about their ingratitude, when he had taken better care than his own goats, they said, "That is why we are leaving. If we stay, the next time you find some new goats, you will neglect us and take care of them." AND Aesop thinks that the moral of that story is, "Old friends cannot be neglected with impunity for new ones."

To be honest, I thought so too. Till I used that fable once with a bunch of management guys from different areas of specialization. They opened my eyes to the reality of the moral of the tale.

"So, you think that fable tells me I should not offer attractive schemes only to new customers? Nonsense. As usual, you have got the moral all wrong."

"What? What have I..."

"See, does the tale tell anything about any of his old goats scampering away? So, exactly how has he lost? His old friends are still with him. AND, if even one of the new lot had stayed with him, he is better off by one more goat. I think the moral should be more of 'Change is difficult for people. You may not get the new, but you will not lose the old.'"

"Yeah, Right!" chimed in the HR guy. "We entice people from other companies with better pay and perks. That does not cause an exodus of our own people. Pity! There are some we would happily give a farewell party to..."

"You mean, you do not lose any old customers...or employees..."

"Don't go wholesale like that. It is alright for fables to talk in either-or. Whether it applies to wild goats or no, when it comes to people, some 'wild goats' will stick to us...and some of our own 'goats' may leave. The point is, we generally gain in the process."

Hmmm! Either Aesop got it wrong or human beings are a whole lot more stupid than wild goats!

Old Fables New Morals - Hercules and the Wagoner

So, there was this wagoner driving his cart on a rainy day when his wheels sank down in the slush and the cart would not move. The poor chap goes down on his knees and prays to Hercules to help him by lifting the cart out of the slush where it was stuck. Hercules appears and says, "Put your shoulder to the wheel and push it yourself. You will find your prayers fruitless if you do not first try to help yourself first."

The moral, apparently, was that 'Self-help is the best help' according to Aesop. But, then, the Wagoner probably had not done an MBA. Now, if you can conceive of an MBA actually doing things like driving carts on rainy days, instead of making reports about the logistics problems caused by rains, the story would have not ended with Hercules' statement.

"How may a mere mortal accomplish a task that is beyond the strength of mighty Hercules?"

(Note that he would not say, "I bet you cannot lift this cart off, you bum!" That MAY have had the cart off the mud but would leave the wagoner buried in the ground.)

"Lifting this puny cart is beyond my strength? What makes you say so?"

"Else why would kindhearted Hercules decline to help a mortal in distress? If he does, it must be because the task is beyond him."

And that would have the cart off the slush, Hercules' ears ringing with praises and apologies.

The moral of the story would really have been, "IF stroking the ego does not work, try wounding it."

Old Fables New Morals - The wind and the sun

This comparison thing that I was talking of some time back seems to have infected everything. Like, there is this fable by a laddie called Aesop (who seemed to believe that no child should ever listen to a story without being burdened by a moral at the end). And, you know what, even the wind and the sun apparently indulged in this comparison game.

So, apparently the wind and the sun were arguing about which of them was the strongest. Like all big-shots, they did not want to fight each other and risk being injured themselves. So they decided to try their strength on a poor traveler who was wearing a cloak. The deal was that whichever of them made the traveler take off the cloak was to be considered the mightier entity.

The wind had the first shot at it, with the sun retreating behind a cloud and allowing a free hand. The wind huffed and puffed, blew and gusted, buffeted and pummeled the poor chap, causing him to hold on to his cloak all the tighter. At last, the wind retreated in defeat.

Now the sun came out and shone on the traveler. He started getting hot under the collar...err...cloak, and removed it.

AND Aesop wants you to learn that gentleness serves you better than force. But, then, we can forgive the poor chap because, in his time, performance appraisal was not invented yet. As you know, this decision of who was the more useful, mighty, whatever of the two can hardly be left to them to decide. It has to be decided by HR professionals after a due process of appraising the performance.

So, the wind goes in first for this performance appraisal interview.

"What do you think of your performance?"

A shamefaced wind says, "I tried my best with all my strength. Despite my best efforts, I could not make the man remove his cloak."

"Yes, we know! We saw how much effort and dedication you brought to the task. You are a good team-player."

And then comes the Sun, confident that this time he would get a great rating.

"So what do you have to say for yourself?"

Nonplussed by a certain coldness in the query (That passive-aggressive thingy people talk about? Who do you think are the best experts at that?), the Sun said, "I successfully accomplished the mission."

"Nonsense! You were just hanging around, grinning all over your face, doing nothing. Just because the traveler chose to take off his cloak then, you claim you made him do it?"

That, dear friends, is the real moral of the story. "It is better to make visible efforts, even without results, than to get results without making your efforts visible."