Anyone at this late stage still undecided? Remember ‘The Old South Indian Monkey Trap’ (excuse the slightly airy new age feeling reference lifted straight from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance but it’s less dry than philosophical logic…) Basically the monkey trap is a heavy coconut with a hole made in it and some rice stuffed in it. The hole’s big enough for the monkey to stick his (or her) hand in and grab a handful of rice but, crucially, it isn’t big enough for the monkey to get its clenched fistful of rice out again. The trap works because the monkey won’t let go of the rice even when the villagers approach to capture him (or her.) It isn’t able to get past the fact that its got a handful of rice and won’t give it up so it effectively gives up the freedom it had and could have again to go and search for something else to eat for the rest of its life. For a handful of rice that it has in that moment. It isn’t able to put aside the handful of rice for a moment and conceive of its future freedom to live and reassess how relatively valueless a handful of rice is in the context in which it finds itself. It might be easy to say at this point “who are you going to allow to make a monkey out of you?” but that would obviously be childish and unhelpful and doesn’t account for the fact that our powers of conception, visualisation and reasoning have evolved far beyond the monkey’s to a point where we should be eminently capable of making today’s decision. Just saying.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:35:49 +0000
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