Month: September 2014

Yekrut the wisest bird on earth

Gerard S. HoffLeave a comment

Cold turkey

Yekrut the wisest bird on earth

September 23, 2014

Like all monkeys, Jake liked bananas.
He ate bananas many times a day and every time he enjoyed them like it was the first time.

Actually, the first time he ate bananas he was just a small boy. He had seen his parents and the other apes eat bananas and it looked simple. Bite at the bottom of the stem, right above the fruity flesh, rip the skin off and the delicious yellow-white meat is visible and ready to eat.

But not for Jake.
He tried to do it with his teeth once and was appalled by the bitter taste the banana skin left in his mouth and figured out a better way,using his hands and nail to break the skin right beneath the stem. Most of the time he was able to open the banana without squeezing it to pulp, and eat the delicious fruit.

One day Jake was swinging from tree to tree and had a great time until the branch of one tree broke off and our little hero wasn’t able to grab another branch and fell on the forest ground/floor.

It was just bad luck, but Jake fell with his butt on his hand that was on the root of a tree. His hand broke in the most unfortunate way. Jake screamed! It hurt like he never experienced pain before.

But that wasn’t the biggest problem.
The first time he tried to open a banana, he experienced a furious pain in his right hand and wasn’t able to open up the banana….

Drama.

So he tried his left hand, but because his left was less developed than his right hand, he squeezed the banana right beneath the stem into pulp. And Jake didn’t like the pulpy taste. That made him unhappy and he started to complain.

James was the leader of this particular gang of apes. Actually nobody called him James, everybody called him Monk, because he had this bold spot on the back of his head. Something he wasn’t really happy about, but couldn’t see either, because he had no mirror. Only when he looked in the river he was able to see his face and hair and that looked quite good, so….
Monk heard Jake complain, and complain.

After 3 days of continuous complaining Monk was fed up with Jake’s negativity, so he went to him and complained back.

At the end of the downward spiral of discussions and no solutions, Monk had an idea. A long time ago, he heard about a wise turkey living in a big hollow tree deep in the forest. As the story goes, this turkey always had a solution, for any problem. This is why he was wise.

So Jake went to see this wise turkey. After a small journey he found the huge turkey in the hollow tree and before Jake could speak, the turkey asked “Can I help you, Jake?”.

Jake was very surprised the turkey knew his name!
When he found back his tongue, he explained how he broke his right hand and wasn’t able to  open a banana with his left hand by twisting the stem without squeezing the banana into pulp and he didn’t want to bite and he really liked bananas!

What should he do!?

Softly the turkey suggested Jake to turn the banana upside-down and try it again.

Jake was so surprised by this answer that he couldn’t move and just stood there with his mouth half open and a banana in his hand. He then slowly turned the banana upside-down, still staring at the turkey. Then with his left hand he twisted the bottom of the banana and without any effort, the skin opened. The banana did not turn in to pulp and the white, tasty fruit stared at Jake. Surprised he took a bite and it was delicious!

“This is great!”, said Jake, “Thank you very much. How did you know the solution to my problem was so simple”?

The turkey replied “Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned*”.

It is important to understand that many of us do things because we’ve always done them like that. Because of that we believe it is the truth. And this truth has never been tested. It works because everybody believes it is the truth, so why change.

Actually what you just opened is the top of the banana, not the bottom.

A banana grows upside-down. It’s called negative geotropism or growing against gravity, said the turkey. Because of that, the stem has to be very strong to keep the banana up. If it were not, the stem wouldn’t be able to keep the banana growing upside-down.

What you tried to do was to open the toughest part of the banana…

Jake said: When you say it like that, it sounds so logical!
You are truly the wisest bird on earth.
What is your name?

My name is Yekrut.

Yekrut? Jake asked.

Yes, Yekrut.
It used to be just Turkey, said the turkey, but when I grew up, I created a simple vision and that is to reverse ordinary thinking. Questioning and testing what we’ve learned and how we do things in a certain way because we always have.

When the birds and the other creatures heard me solving problems by reversing the ‘truth’, they started to call me Yekrut.

Yekrut is Turkey spelled backwards.

The morale of this story is that we have a tendency to do things or believe things without questioning whether it is actually true or validated or still applicable.

Because of that we create our own belief system and become averse of regarding existing things with a fresh pair of eyes.
But there is a whole different way of looking at this:

Knowledge from the past is like a good weight.
New knowledge is like a trampoline.
Using this weight on the trampoline releases a lot of energy.
When you’re open to this way of thinking, the only thing you need to do is decide in which direction you want to jump.

I wish for you a fresh pair of eyes and new things to see.

*Mark Twain

 

 

Flamenco Joe So

Gerard S. HoffLeave a comment

Flamenco Joe So

Joe was a pink flamenco, with dark pink flames. Not very ‘masculine’ but then again, he’s a flamenco. Joe isn’t your ordinary flamenco, he’s one of those guys who sets the rules. You know them.

When he was young he wasn’t the unfriendly kind, but when necessary he would take your lunch money and somehow you’d accept it, because it was Joe. It was almost a privilege when Joe stole your money. And when somebody said something about it, Joe simply said “so?” and that was it.

With “so?” he defined a new set of rules, Joe’s rules. And in a way, “So?” was a one-syllable word that told a 1000 word story. Thinking about that, it wasn’t Joe’s 1000 word story, it was my own. In that sense, “So?” was a trigger to start thinking about the situation, putting things in perspective and at the same time it didn’t.
He still stole my lunch money.

Anyway, that was the reason Joe was called Joe So. He grew up doing what he did and always got away with it. One day, he was standing in the pond, together with all the other flamencos enjoying the sun, eating and chatting when it started to rain. Not just a bit of rain, but a serious downpour.

The pond filled slowly with water and the banks started to flood. The watercrept up the feet of the flamencos and one after the other got out of the pond. One of them said to Joe: “Hey Joe, shouldn’t you get out of the water as well? It is rising and almost up to your belly!”

“So?” said Joe and he remained where he was. Standing in the pond.

The rain kept downpouring from the sky. It was like somebody was trying to turn-over an ocean from the sky. More flamencos fled from the pool until the point all flamencos had left, but Joe remained where he was. And again a flamenco said: Joe! Shouldn’t you get out of the pond? The water is up to your shoulders!”

“So?” said Joe and he remained where he was. Standing in the pond.

All flamencos went away, hiding under the trees and the rain kept filling the pond until the water was up to Joe’s neck. That was the point when Joe thought “So!” and realized the situation became a bit tricky. Even for him. So he decided to get out of the pond as well and started to move to the banks.

But when he wanted to move his feet, they were stuck in the mud. He couldn’t move, while the water kept rising and rising. First the lower edge of his beak, so he had to move is beak up to get some air. Still his feet were stuck and then his head was under water, not being able to breathe.

Joe realized he wasn’t going to make it and his life flashed before his eyes and the last thought he had was “So that was it” and died peacefully.

The next day, the flamencos found his body on the bottom of the pond. His feet still stuck in the mud, but with a smile on his face.

Maybe you find this a shocking story but don’t worry. It is a fable and no live animals were hurt. That is the good thing about fables.

The moral of this story is that it is good to be stubborn and go your own way, but it is also good to listen to others (now and then). You don’t have to agree, but it is useful to think about what they say and react, and sometimes just take the advice that is offered to you. Because if you don’t, things always remain the same, with the unfortunate side effect something might go wrong.

Best advice? Don’t be inert, be open for new ideas, keep moving.
A little step at the time will do to not get stuck in the mud,
but be able to stand on top of it.

Flamenco Joe So is part of the World Of Beast.

Some people stop when facing a problem, for others it is just the beginning.

Gerard S. HoffLeave a comment

 

Generally speaking, there are 2 ways of defining a problem:

photo 1

  1. An obstacle, a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful or  a thing that is difficult to achieve or accomplish
  2. The discrepancy between the current and the desired situation.

The first definition is negative and creates no space, nor energy. The second one has two interesting angles: a. You have to define the desired situations and that is inspiring and fun and b. That opens up a dimension full of creativity. And remember: It is the journey, not always the destination defined….