… tentang inovasi dan berpikir holistik

Kembali saya menyajikan sebuah puisi indah yang menggambarkan upaya manusia untuk menemukan kebenaran, tanpa menyadari ketidaksempurnaan diri dan pengetahuan kita.

It was six men of Indostan
To learn much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind)
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happened to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to brawl:
“God bless me but the Elephant
Is very like a wall.”

The second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happened to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus, boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he,
“The Elephant Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt around the knee,
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“’tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he,
“the Elephant is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each of his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Sebuah puisi untuk hari ini. Puisi ini ditulis oleh Sam Walter Foss (1851-1911) pada tahun 1895. Puisi ini menceritakan bagaimana jalan-jalan di kota Boston (?) yang berkelok-kelok itu ternyata merupakan ‘ciptaan’ dari sapi-sapi jaman dulu yang tidak suka naik turun jalanan yang curam. Karena itu, mereka berjalan zig-zag. Jejak mereka lalu diikuti sampai beratus-ratus tahun kemudian oleh jutaan manusia tanpa pernah mempertanyakan alasannya. Mungkin kita akan tertawa dalam hati setelah membaca puisi tersebut, dan kita mungkin akan menertawakan kenaifan warga kota Boston. Tapi cerita ini adalah cerita tentang kita semua, yang selalu mengikuti adat istiadat, kebijaksanaan perusahaan, pantangan, mitos, atau apa saja, tanpa tahu alasannya dan tidak pernah mempertanyakan asal muasalnya.

The Calf-Path

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale:

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er hill and glade
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out
And dodged and turned and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;

But still they followed–do not laugh
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And thus, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
For men are prone to go it blind,
Along the calf-paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun,
To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.
But how the wise old wood gods laugh,
Who saw that first primeval calf!