Think Your Way Out

A money lender who used to give credit to a neighbourhood trader, approached him one day: ''It's time you repay. However, knowing your hardship, I am prepared to forego the loans, if only you'd let me marry your daughter.”  The trader and his daughter were aghast.  After much thought, the daughter came up with a plan.  From a box containing a black and a white pebble, the lender must pick one without looking

If it is black, she would marry him, and he would write off the debt.  If it is white, he would give up both.  The lender stipulated that he would pick up the pebbles, while she could make the final choice.  On the agreed day, at the riverbank, the lender collected two pebbles, deftly both black dropping them into the bag in a trice.  The trader's daughter who saw this vowed herself: ''I will not let him cheat me.''  And she did not.

How she outfoxed her opponent is a defining example of 'Lateral Thinking'.  Edward de Bono, the architect of this unique method which The Sunday Times of London called "the biggest craze since Scrabble", wrote over 80 books including the bestseller “Six Thinking Hats”.  In a challenging situation, it encouraged one to imagine wearing six different hats, and think like six different guys!   In the process, the obvious step-by-step logical approach (which De Bono called 'Vertical Thinking') was skipped to let the mind transcend usual thought patterns and perceived restrictions, until reaching an innovative outcome no one ever thought about.

Edward de Bono, even as he propagated dynamic thinking concepts and tools, produced a documentary film “2040” where he envisioned a cryogenic freeze to build a future society.  He also compiled a Code Book of communication to integrate linguistic multiplicities.  But what caught everyone by surprise was his 'out of the box' theory about low Zinc level in the food consumed, was fuelling conflicts in the middle east.

With De Bono's demise on 9 June 2021, the world lost an original thinker who inspired, encouraged, and enabled us to think differently, and strive to enrich our planet and lives.

*Think laterally to find out how!   

 “The mind can only see what it is prepared to see.”

- Edward de Bono 

The Wait For Good Days

The other day, a friend asked: "What is your biggest fear in life?"   I didn't respond promptly, as I always do.  "Ha ha", he said: "You seem to be like me, harbouring more than one fear, right?"  “Wrong”, I said: “I was in fact searching for one that frightens me.”

He wasn't convinced:  “How can you say that?   Everyone experiences fear.  It is like any other emotion that grips you without warning.  Why are you ashamed to accept it?  Don't you think, fear in a way, helps us to counter or circumvent an imminent danger?  Most often our reflexes help us.  Only in its absence, does fear keep haunting us, and disrupting our thoughts and lives.”

He continued: “In my case, loneliness is at the root of all my fear.  Seclusion, solitude, isolation, alienation..., call it whatever you want.  Even within the family, I feel like an island without a bridge.  Covid-19 has made that feeling worse, imposing unimaginable restrictions, and threatening to wreck my faculties.”

You may wonder.., has this guy gone bonkers?  No.  He was openly expressing his concerns.  And the reality is, he is not alone.  Many people I talk to, express increasing levels of boredom, lethargy, and fatigue.  There is an air of all round uncertainty.  The question is, how long is this going to last?  Would we ever see ''good days'' again?

Life, we are told, is beautiful.  But we tend to forget, how that beautiful life shocks us at times.  In such moments of anxiety, fear, and helplessness, if we have to retain our mental balance, we must stay calm, confident and optimistic.  

The one-liner below tells us, nothing is ever totally lost, even when we fear falling into an abyss!

 “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Spilling The Beans

Both my mother and wife were excellent cooks.  Under their loving care, I hogged, commented like an expert, and chose the next day's menu.  Whenever I volunteered to help, my wife would tell: “No, butter-fingers, for heaven's sake, no!”  Her respect for my uncanny ability to drop, topple and litter was 'sacred'!

Things changed.  Nobody is around any more, to feed me or shoo me away.  Today, I use my unrestricted access to the kitchen, not to help anyone else, but help myself to survive!  On day one, while attempting to make Chapatis, I made a sticky mess of the dough.  Somehow I managed to roll it into shapes beyond Geometrical definition, ending up burning some and half-baking the rest.  A friend consoled: “When you are the only one to eat what you cook, why worry?”

As if possessed, I plodded on to recreate cherished tastes.  Overcoming my deficiencies wasn't easy.  I couldn't distinguish Mustard seeds from Sesame, Aniseeds from Fennel, or Cumin Seeds from Caraway.  Unsure of the time the cooker took to boil, rice often ended up either semi or over cooked!  Then came COVID 19.  As eateries shut shop, I began dreaming about the day when ready-to-eat food could be directly downloaded from the internet!

It was amidst such wild thoughts, that I stumbled across a YouTube cookery site, where preparing food was made to look like kid's stuff.  Encouraged, I began to experiment.  The slips “'twixt the cup and the lip” were numerous!  Yet, I carried on.  Today, I can just about fill my stomach, also fulfil my appetite to some extent.

However, my Primary school days and the weekly 'Craft' classes, where we learnt to stitch, draw, paint and so on, often come to mind.  No one then had the vision to include Cooking in the syllabus, or familiarise us with basic recipes and common ingredients.  If kitchen didn't excite me all these years, and remained just an extension that came with the house, I now know whom to blame!

 “A kitchen is the shrine, a cook the priest, the table an altar, and belly the god!”

- Charles Buck