29.12.13

Sunday ka Funda


One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” She asked.

Where do you want to go?” was his response.

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

* * *


Actually, it does. Often the road decides where we want to go rather than the other way round.

3 comments:

  1. I am guessing you are referring to human tendency to rationalize their choices. Many times we don't know what a choice we make will lead us to, but later on we decide that this is what we wanted to do anyway.

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  2. Could be, Sai. On the other hand, we might recall the circumstance that brought Alice to Wonderland in the first place: she'd followed the rabbit into the rabbit hole. Had she known then where that road would lead? At best, given the hour and the rabbit's accutrement, she may have supposed a tea-party (and scones, just the ticket for bored little English girls); however, the text doesn't really say. All it says is that, hot on the trail of this unusual rabbit, she was "fortunate" to see it dart into a rabbit-hole and plunged on in after it. All we can say then is that, at the time, Alice was hardly thinking about "where," only that her curiosity about the rabbit be satisfied.

    >>Many times we don't know what a choice we make will lead us to, but later on we decide that this is what we wanted to do anyway.<<

    Certainly motivation (what we want) is key; but there would also seem a requirement for means. At the bottom of the rabbit-hole, Alice is confronted by a number of locked doors. The last is fifteen inches high, and, upon a table next to it, is a small key that exactly fits the smaller door's tiny lock. She unlocks it; but her *means* for getting through its fifteen inch aperture is problemmatic. At this juncture (rabbit forgotten), her motivation is solely to get out of this hall full of locked doors and into the delightful garden she sees without. And yet, the means -- this tiny portal -- is insufficient to allow it to happen.

    Thus, we note that the means -- the way (whether a door, road or some other conveyance) must fit the motivation, and perhaps thus Farzana's suggestion that, "Often the road decides where we want to go." And certainly, as you suggest, Sai, stymied or successful, we may later rationalize that, notwithstanding such means-based coercion, where we arrive is where we aimed for all along.  :)

    Of course, what Farzana may have been referring to is the *quality* of the road (i.e. smooth or rough, divertingly picturesque or utterly dull), which, in effect, would shift the motivation from destination to journey . . .

    M.

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  3. Sai:

    On the contrary, it is irrational. All plans get altered along the way, and we may not decide that this is what we want, but accept it. Probably, we do not know the destination, therefore we glorify the journey as being the end. 

    Mark:

    What more can anyone add?! Well-explained. 

    {Of course, what Farzana may have been referring to is the *quality* of the road (i.e. smooth or rough, divertingly picturesque or utterly dull), which, in effect, would shift the motivation from destination to journey . .}

    Not to forget take pictures of milestones :-)

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