You know, you can hardly say anything these days without a bunch of people eagerly waiting to scream about how you got it all wrong, even before you finish saying it. And me, I am cursed with a set of friends whose sole purpose in life seems to be to tell me the worst about myself. (Yeah, yeah, I know all that guff about a good friend being critical so that you better yourself. But, pray tell me, does anyone really expect me to 'improve' in my late fifties when I have not managed that feat till now?)
Of course, my friends belong in my age group, by and large, which accounts for the fact that they dig out a very old post of mine to point out what is wrong in it. As any youngster knows, any post more than a day old is as good as a fossil and who, except, archaeologists are interested in fossils anyway? Old fossils, that is who, which explains the issue.
So, yeah, there was this post of mine about 'Hercules and the Wagoner' where the Wagoner's cart gets stuck in the mud and he prays to Hercules to help him. Whereupon, Hercules comes and tells him to do it himself. I had written that the tale would have ended differently had the Wagoner known better people management. And now...
"You know, you did not give enough credit to that Wagoner. Too busy showing off what you fondly think is your superiority, I suppose."
Yup...one of my 'friends'. (WHAT was that? You want to know what I said in that post? Well, if you want to study a fossil, better dig it out from here.)
"Credit for what? For whining for a god to help him, instead of doing it himself?"
"Yeah, if you want to look down on a guy, you can choose the viewpoint to do it, right? You do not see that he was only ahead of his times."
"Ahead of his times? How so? All through pre-history and history, people have prayed to gods."
"Something specific like getting a cart out of the mud? That's not just praying, that's outsourcing!"
I burst out laughing. Outsourcing! Really!
"Since when is asking for a more powerful entity for help called outsourcing?"
"If you choose to see it in terms of who is powerful and who is not...Business works on which is the cheapest way to get a thing done. Now, which involves lesser effort, praying for help or trying to push the cart out of the hole?"
Put THAT way...
Seeing the look on my face, he nodded.
"I see you get it. THAT chap was a precursor to this outsourcing thing. Who knows, all those guys from way back have been trying their best to outsource their work to God/gods. To be alive is to deal with problems, sometimes heartbreaking ones; to deal even with problems that our own actions create. And we have tried with all our might to outsource it."
"Well, it did not work, did it?"
"Of course, it did not! One important component for making outsourcing work is missing. How do you impose a penalty for non-performance?"
Hmmm...
"We did try saying that we would stop believing in Him/them as a penalty for not accepting our outsourcing requests. Did not work as a sufficient penalty."
Hmmm! So, threatening to stop believing in them did not work as an incentive, then?
Maybe I really should revisit the lessons I posited in my previous version, after all!