A
watched pot never boils
“A watched pot never boils, but it
does develop paranoia”
- Josh Stern, in And That’s Why I’m Single.
“A watched pot never boils” is something that you say and mean, when
if you wait anxiously for something to happen, it seems to take a very
long time; watching and waiting will not speed up matters. In other
words, time feels longer when you are watching and waiting for something
to happen. However, like many of the most effective proverbs, this one
is poetic rather than literal because watching a pot has no effect on
how long it takes to boil.
There are different set of rules that govern the time needed for a
pot to boil. To cite an example of the idiom: we watched and waited for
things to happen when a change in our country’s political environment
brought hope in the form of a change in government; and we watched and
waited for the pot of hope to boil. But perhaps, because we were
anxiously awaiting and watching; it seemed an everlasting wait.
Nation of storytellers
It may also be that our hopes and expectations were, beyond
realities; and hence, our watching and waiting had no impact; making us
realise that indeed, in many instances, watched pots never boil. There
is also another idiom to the effect: “There is no gain without pain”.
Thus, I suppose if watched pots are to boil, the people we trust to
fulfill our expectations, must act with intentions, aimed not at
personal gains, but with honesty of purpose, howsoever painful it may be
to their personal interests.
If they, instead, try to achieve things through cunning, slyness, and
stealth, aimed at personal gain; neither will watched pots boil, nor
will our expectations fulfill as expected: the very expectations that
gave them strength and victory? Intention may be the most powerful force
there is and the law of intentions may be the creator of this world; but
purity of intentions and honesty are the essential ingredients for
intentions to convert to actions; and action to fulfill dreams.
The problem with this nation is that we are a nation of storytellers
and therefore listen to storytellers. After all, all storytellers are
people who have good memories to repeat the same lies; but hope others
do not have good memories. We have not yet realized that a storyteller
lives in the world of make believe and makes up things seemingly to help
other people; and, a lying storyteller will always make up things to
help himself.
As a result, even after countless number of listening and numberless
numbers of disappointments, we surrender our hopes and dreams to the
fateful limitations of storytellers and lying storytellers. We realize
not, that the vision of our true destiny does not reside within the
blinkered outlook of the storytellers and the doom prophets. We have not
learnt, not to judge them by their word; but by the evidence of actual
results produced in the past.
We have failed to see the complete absence of anything inspiring a
sense of honesty in their stories; that their words are but mystical and
miraculous only in the manifested realities of storytelling. For our
people who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment,
prosperity, and only survive on self-limiting beliefs; the storytellers,
always infuses hope, with their by now well-refined art of storytelling
that has no connection to the realities of experience. Our storytellers
have the capability to make our wildest wishes come true; to conjure
ideas that floor the minds of not only the mindless, but also that of
the sound of mind. In fact, there is no limitation on what we supposedly
can achieve; except the limitations that the storytellers choose to
impose on our imagination.
What these storytellers believe to be possible will always come true,
to the extent that their stories deem it possible, the next time round;
and it is as simple as that. Hence, dare to dream, for that is all what
we have been doing anyway. The truth is, in spite of the storytellers,
we as a people have failed to learn that be it through intention or
ignorance, our successes and our failures have all been brought on by,
none other than ourselves; that what one does is what counts, and not
what one had the intention of doing. Our storytellers only have
intentions; and if fulfilled, rest assured that it is, based on
self-interest and gain to the storyteller: nothing else, nothing more.
Storytelling
All great acts are, ruled by intention. Intentions are the basic
stuff that is at the core of the universe - a kind of pure energy that
flows out into the world and affects other energy systems. However, it
is only when expectations turn to intentions, and intentions remain
pure; they create in our soul and spirit, this flow of energy. Such
energy causes to flow out into the world and spread happiness, not mere
words. Storytelling may be an important part of human continuity; but
storytellers, as they exist, are a threat because even if all wisdom is
in the stories they tell, we the gullible, have not the intelligence to
see the lies in them and fall prey every single time, over and over,
again and again.
Therefore, storytellers threaten all democracy, especially in
countries in which the folly of fools still abounds: be it habitually or
occasionally.
They frighten through falsity, and usurp the right to the freedom of
the human spirit and human mind: everywhere, every time, always - in
state, in church or mosque or temple, in party congress, in parliament,
in the university or wherever; the storytellers rule through lies.
Many words will be spoken and written on the wind and the sand; or
end up in some obscure gazette; but the storytelling will go on until
the last human being stops listening. Then, and perhaps only then, we
can send this great chroniclers of humanity, out into the endless
nothingness where there will be no stories, no listeners.
Waiting for the fish to bite, or waiting for the wind to fly a kite;
or waiting for Friday night; or waiting perhaps for love or a loved one;
or a pot to boil, or a better break, a string of pearls, or a pair of
pants; or for the hair to curl; or for another chance.
Futility of waiting
Everyone is just waiting, waiting, and waiting; waiting for something
or the other. Do not keep waiting, for there are only as many days in
the year as you make use of. Life is short and is the way cosmic nature
encourages a bit of focus and tells you not to waste your life because
any moment is later than you think. Therefore, let storytellers be. Let
them wait and stew in their own stories while we put wood under their
boiling cauldron.
If you wait for them, it will take forever. Cast them aside and treat
them as frogs: If you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will
hop right out; but if you put that frog in a pot of tepid water and
slowly warm it, the frog does not figure out what is going on until it
is too late. The frog’s survival instincts are, only geared towards
detecting sudden changes.
I am using this parable to illustrate how storytellers have to be
careful to watch slowly changing trends in their environment, their
surroundings, not just the sudden changes.
It is a warning to keep them paying attention; not just to, obvious
threats but to more slowly developing ones and to indicate that their
falsities will eventually get to them. Therefore, let storytellers be.
It is just a matter of working by slow degrees to get rid of them even
in this nation of storytellers.
An explanation: Generally, Storytellers the world over are employed,
or seek employment, in the profession of the last resort of the
scoundrel.
For views, reviews, encomiums, and brickbats:
[email protected]
|