The tortoise, the hare and Google in the sea

The moral of the tale of the tortoise and the hare is a warning against the dangers of resting on your laurels.

Well, that’s arguably the main moral. But there are probably others that can be drawn from it too. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t give up. Don’t eat carrots. Don’t fall asleep on the job. Don’t waste time. Don’t be too sure you’ll win. Don’t support contests that pit one species of animal against another. Slow and sure will always beat fast and flighty.

Cautionary tales are loaded with lessons, and whatever lesson you choose to cherish and pass on to your grandchildren, what cannot be denied is how ill-matched the tortoise and the hare were.

That is the beauty of the story — two mismatched protagonists in a competition that seems a sure bet from the start, and the climax is the classic denouement, the surprise overturning of conventional wisdom. Interpretation of the story rests ultimately on whether you fall into the world view of eternal optimism or the opposite of perpetual pessimism.

If you’re of the school of the half-full glass, everybody wins in the end. The tortoise proves the value of self-belief and perseverance. The hare proves that pride and arrogance can be your downfall. Here endeth the lesson. Go, and do thou likewise.

If you’re an alumnus of the school across the road, everybody loses. The hare is a jerk and deserved his comeuppance, while the tortoise was a jerk and should have stayed where he belonged — in his shell. The whole thing was rigged and full of bullshit. That’s not real life. Shit happens. Go, and waste someone else’s time.

I would listen to that story over and over again on an old 33rpm LP my dad bought us kids. Why did he spend money on a record of stories?

If you are of the first school, you’d say because he loved us and because he loved to see the joy in our eyes as we sat listening to the old gramophone. If you come from the school of the half-empty glass, you’d say he was a hypocrite, a wastrel and a jerk for squandering money on silly pointless trinkets.

In the immortal words of Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” I use the examples of tales and stories and legends merely to illustrate that any and every thing that happens to and around us can be interpreted in a gazillion ways.

Sometimes we can’t see a particular interpretation until it is pointed out to us, like a shape hidden in a picture or an elusive crossword answer. Sometimes it’s a face in the clouds. Sometimes it’s a glimpse into a future what-if situation. Sometimes it’s something only we can see textured and layered and tinted by our unique weltanshaung.

Does one view have greater value another? Of course, not; except on the purely subjective level. Sometimes the value of a cautionary tale changes with the passage of time. In our twenties we heard only the tortoise’s side and imbued with self-belief and tenacity, we stayed the course in the sure hope of ultimate success. We can change the world. If you can dream it, you can do it.

In our fifties we hear the hare’s side, and are constantly astounded by the collapse of conventional wisdom, by the failure of so many things we had come to hold as immutable truths, by the realisation that we don’t have all the answers, that there are yottabytes more questions than we thought.

By our seventies and eighties we have learnt that “if this world keeps right on turning, for the better or the worse and all we ver get is older and around, from the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down”, (thanks to my great friend Kris).

Knowledge is oh-so easy to acquire and accumulate. Even more so today. In fact, there’s so much knowledge, so much data already out there and its volume is growing so fast that archiving it and processing it has already become a dire hassle. Internet servers that supply the info you’re reading right now are so power-hungry they gobbled up 1,5% of the entire electricity supply of the US in 2006 (comparisons to our own ANC kakistocracy’s exploitation, extortion and greed come readily to mind).

Now Google, the grand gobbler of them all, is being forced offshore. The Googlites plan to build megalibraries and hyperprocessing plants called data centres in the open ocean where “real estate” is free, power comes from wind turbines and wave generators and ocean water cools the overheating servers. Kinda like nuclear sub meets know-how.

But it is all way too easy to mistake knowledge for wisdom.

Knowledge is the domain of the hare and the breathless hyperactive optimism of youth. Wisdom isn’t stored in data centres. Wisdom is not just out there waiting to be acquired like the latest iPod, plasma screen or green appliance (thanks Rian). Wisdom is intangible, ethereal, elusive. Wisdom demands work — a moer of a lot of work. And unlike gaining knowledge, wisdom demands huge investments of humility, faith, transcendant dilligence and time — lots and lots of time.

Wisdom is the universe and the dimension of the tortoise. Little wonder then it is so derided, so overlooked, so dissed by Hollywood and Harvard alike in their helter-skelter stampede to gain and manage knowledge.

Knowledge strip-clears the forests of Borneo to plant millions of hectares of super-lucrative oil palm. All the way to the Swiss banks, knowledge spins the Delphine doctrine of development.

But wisdom, being slower and more cautious, says: Careful kids, think about what you’re doing. Take your time. Think a lot. Think of everything you’ve got now. Will you still be here tomorrow? Dreams are good things, but each one must be carefully, tenderly, methodically teased out.

Think about it.