The Blind Men & The Elephant

A parable:

Six blind men are brought to examine an elephant that has come to their village.

• The first man touches the trunk and says that the elephant is like a thick snake.
• The second man touches the tusk and says that the elephant is like a spear.
• The third man touches the ear and says that the elephant is like a fan.
• The fourth man touches the leg and says that the elephant is like a tree.
• The fifth man touches the side and says the elephant is like a wall.
• The sixth man touches the tail and says the elephant is like a rope.

Each of the blind men is convinced that he is right and that everyone else is wrong.

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From Sahail Bloom:

American poet John Godfrey Saxe’s version of the story concludes with a simple, beautiful line:

Each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong.​

So, oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance, Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant, Not one of them has seen!

The moral of this story is that the information we have about the world represents a tiny fraction of the information available, yet we use it to form a view of how the world works.

The world is always infinitely more complex than our narrow observation windows would allow us to understand.

I'm reminded of David Foster Wallace's famous This Is Water speech in 2005 (emphasis mine):

"The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded."

You can either choose to (A) cling to the notion that your view is the absolute truth or (B) embrace a degree of humility about your views and open your mind to change.

The goal of Path A is to preserve the notion of our own intelligence. The goal of Path B is to broaden and improve our view of reality by acquiring new and better information.

We should all choose Path B...

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” ― Mark Twain

At the end of every quarter, ask yourself what you've changed your mind on recently.

If you can't think of anything, that's a bad thing.

Fighting back against perspective blindness and opening your mind to new ideas is a tried and true path to consistent, compounding growth.

The next time you want to reject an alternative viewpoint without thinking, remember the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant:

The world is much more complex than any of us can possibly understand.

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