Recently, I was asked to give an entertaining speech. I chose to tell a monkey story that not only entertains us, but teaches us a great lesson about our mental road blocks. Hope you enjoy this speech I gave and find it funny. I hope our Indian politicians learn this lesson too. Your feedback is certainly appreciated:
Great speech - great style, good language, nice flow and no "umms", "aahs", "likes" or "you knows".
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't necessarily agree with the moral of the story. From your very own story, I can deduce that the last new monkey was rather getting into trouble questioning the process. It better listen to other monkeys, else it could get itself and other monkeys into trouble.
Same is true for we humans. We have to accept some time tested procedures, rules and laws that were created by people before us. If we start questioning them or starting anew we may very well get into problems and go no where.. I can cite the example of food preparation - I still do not completely understand why my mom puts a mixture of heated oil and spices (called talimpu in Telugu) into Sambhar, but I never questioned it. Sambhar tastes good, as a result!! For the 21st generation people like us, the whys and hows (eg - why is sky blue, why is a rose red, how does a bird fly, etc) were phased out by this education system. We only read about wheres and whats. Our parents and people before them had the opportunity to do more research on whys and hows. That is one reason why centuries before 21st had many scientists, academics, or philosophers. I would rather trust them on a established procedure, rule or a law rather than from one of us..
Thanks oneguy for your comment.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it looks like I did not convey my final message clearly enough. The whole point was to ensure that we remember two things:
1. Why did the initial habit start?
2. When is it time to change? (whenever the initial reason that caused the habit no longer exists)
Next time, I will do a better job in my speech to reiterate that message.
Thanks for your excellent comments. It looks like you are also a toastmaster! Um, aah :)
Mahesh
Good speech Mahesh !!
ReplyDeleteVery well organized, no aahs and umms.., flow was good as well.
You could have added few more jokes, since it was aiming primarily for entertaining..
On the other aspect discussed between you and "oneguy.com": Your message to change established habits could have been stronger, if you had modified the story such that - the scientist does a change where he no longer sprays cold water after all the 3 monkeys are new; in this scenario, 3 new monkeys are following a established practice not to reach for the bannanas, but that practice was not needed any more, since the scientist was no longer spraying the cold water...