Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare:
Once upon a time there was a hare who, boasting how he could run faster than anyone else, was forever teasing tortoise for his slowness. Then one day, the irate tortoise answered back: "Who do you think you are? There's no denying you're swift, but even you can be beaten!" The hare squealed with laughter.*
The hare challenged the tortoise to a race. Along the way, the hare decided to stop, have a quick nap, stop and have some breakfast, and then have yet another snooze. And as we know, the hare ended up losing the race to the tortoise.
This moral of this fable - ‘slow and steady wins the race’ - has been interpreted too literally. Aesop was actually sharing a more deeply faceted message - about character:
Matter-of-fact, if it were truly only a question of speed to create success, there is absolutely no way the tortoise would have beat the hare. The moral of the story actually concerns the character of the hare: ‘arrogance often leads to failure**’. The hare’s character was actually the most dangerous combination of all: boastful and careless.
The Tortoise and the Hare in our Modern Society:
I look around at times and I find that a ’15 seconds of fame’ mentality has seeped into every corner of our space. We obsess over ‘the next big thing’, the ‘latest trends’, the 'newest technology'. And as people, we strive to ‘grow our list of social connections’, we work desperately to associate ourselves with ‘the influentials’ and to be seen in ‘the right places’, with ‘the right people’. This sounds an awful lot like the Hare to me.
The Hare in our Modern Society:
Let’s have a look at the Hare mentality in the social media space, for one example. Social media has become the buzzword of the decade, and phrases like “everything is social” are tossed around freely. Suddenly we have ‘social media experts’. With regards to technology, isn’t it more likely that ‘everything is in beta’; and if that’s true, can there really be any ‘experts’ in social media? (I hope we don’t have any mobile or cloud computing ‘experts’ yet.)
This is not said to denigrate anyone; there is no question that there are some individuals with substantially more knowledge, experience and expertise with regard to social media, mobile media and cloud computing that others, but there’s no need for the label or the attitude we culturally load into the word ‘expert’ (i.e.: Hare).
On Being a Hare or a Tortoise:
Culturally and individually, we should be wary of looking so lovingly to the character of the ‘Hare’ as we lose sight of and devalue the admirable (and productive) character of the Tortoise. Unnecessarily, we hear the word ‘expert’, and well we just want to associate with it because (return to above), "this is a ‘right person’, an ‘influential’, who might be the key to ‘the next big thing’ and might get me closer to those ’15 seconds of fame’'. It’s a dangerous circle of cultural character decline. And its important because it shapes the world we are creating; here’s why:
World-View of the Hare:
- The earth is spinning uncontrollably on an axis, innovation is rampant, change is constant, and the days are racing by. We need to rush, panic and worry, stay on top of things, know as many (preferably ‘the right’) people as possible, sell ourselves aggressively and hope beyond hope that we can ‘make something of ourselves’ to ‘make our mark’ and ‘get noticed’.
- This is the world of ‘social connections’, of ‘influential’, of ‘fame’, of ‘experts’, of running around like a chicken with your head cut off, probably not really accomplishing very much of any lasting value, and building no soul-nurturing foundations along the journey.
World-View of the Tortoise:
- The earth is one great big ecosystem that started millions of years ago and will be here millions of years from now. By definition, this is a world that requires long-term thinking, and even more importantly long-term commitment; a world that requires respect for all the somebodies that inhabit it, a focus on the big picture. We are each of us only one little tiny piece of a much bigger thing. Let me re-state that: We are each one little tiny but super important piece of that. As a collective of individuals, we are creating something, a universe of values.
- This is not a world of ‘what can I do for me today, how can I meet the next right person and champion the next big thing to get me my 15 seconds of fame.’ This is a world of ‘knowledge’, ‘progress’, ‘energy’, ‘vision’, ‘‘relationships’, ‘commitment’, and inclusiveness’. This is a world that says how can I harness the things that are the best in me, how can I attach myself to them passionately, how can I exercise those things in a public space to make a meaningful mark on this world and contribute to history in my own little tiny but super-important way.
Which do you choose? Who are you? A Tortoise or a Hare?
(Sources: *http://childhoodreading.com/Arthur_Rackham/Tortoise_and_the_Hare.html; **http://haqqmisra.wordpress.com/ - Reflections, Ideas and Dreams)
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