Some stories ON CHANGE to get you going …
GREAT BARRIER REEF
Have you ever visited the Great Barrier Reef in Australia?
On the inner (leeward) side of the reef, there are NO waves, NO turbulence, NO ‘CHANGE’ … and NO LIFE!
All of the colorful fish, the beautiful coral and the amazing plants are on the ocean (windward) side of the reef… where they are hammered every day with crashing waves, intense turbulence and ‘CHANGE.’
“IL SOLE NO MUOVE”
Forty years before Copernicus revolutionized the world view, Leonardo da Vinci said, “THE SUN DOES NOT MOVE.” Both these dudes were born on a flat, unmoving planet in the center of the universe, around which the ‘SUN CIRCLED’.
A century after their deaths, that same planet was a rotating sphere orbiting around the sun somewhere in a universe too vast to even have a center! The church tried to suppress this as heresy. The best ‘THINKERS’ of the times thought this concept absurd.
The planet/solar system did not ‘CHANGE’ but, the paradigm for understanding it had been turned inside out.
BABIES BORN IN CHAOS
Steven Pressfield states that the creative act is primitive.
“Babies are born in blood and chaos; stars and gravity come into being amid the release of massive primordial cataclysms.
The hospital room may be spotless and sterile, but the birth itself will always take place amid CHAOS, PAIN and BLOOD.”
ITALY & SWITZERLAND
In the 15th Century, Italy was immersed in chaos, war, bloodshed, terror… and ‘CHANGE.’
It produced da Vinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi… and the RENAISSANCE.
Around the same time, SWITZERLAND experienced hundreds of years of peace, consistency, sustainability and no, none, nada, nil ‘CHANGE.’
It produced the CUCKOO CLOCK.
MONKEY NUTS and BERRIES
My good friend, Jim Mahoney (Battelle for Kids), tells this wonderful story:
It’s pretty easy to catch monkeys in the jungle. You just carve out the inside of a coconut with a small hole in the top, fill the coconut with NUTS and BERRIES, and attach the coconut to a stake or a tree.
The monkey comes along, sticks its hand inside the coconut, and grabs a handful of nuts and berries. The monkey will be there when you get back. Guaranteed. WHY? Because it will NOT let go of the NUTS and BERRIES … and can’t get its’ FIST out of the coconut.
SACRED COWS
Here’s my own short final story on change:
I won a trip around the world (long story, long trip). While visiting India, I actually saw those famous ‘sacred cows,’ and learned that once they got too old or useless, they were shipped across a neighboring border and turned into HAMBURGER!
