THE UNREASONABLE MAN

 “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

- George Bernard Shaw

I am sure many of us have heard or come across the above quote. Accepting the possible is the mark of a reasonable man, whereas wanting something that is impossible is the mark of an unreasonable man. A reasonable man accepts the explanation given by someone as to why something cannot be done. The unreasonable man does not accept the explanation and is never willing to take “Not Possible” as an answer. This is how many scientific inventions and discoveries have happened. This is how much progress has happened to mankind.

We may have all heard this story, in our school days or as a grown up in any of the training sessions. The story goes like this: There was a king who wanted to walk around his kingdom, but owing to the scorching heat of the sun, could not walk on the hot streets barefoot. So, one day, he turned to his minister and ordered: “I want you to carpet the entire kingdom by tomorrow morning. The poor minister sat up the entire night thinking about this impossible task. Suddenly, an idea struck his mind and he set off on a task. The next day, when the king woke up and went out, he found not an inch of carpet anywhere, so he began bellowing for the minister and in a few minutes the minister appeared before the king, clutching a pair of foreign objects in his hands. He said “Oh your highness, please be so kind first to wear these on your feet”. The king agreed, and then the minister slipped the world's first pair of carpet slippers onto the king's feet. Instantly the king's anger turned to delight. He was able to walk wherever he wanted to go, without getting his soles burnt. He was a happy man, thereafter.

The moral of the story or the message, one aims to convey through this story is that we cannot change the entire world, but we can adjust ourselves to fit into this world. This is what we have taught our children and our future generations have very wellbought this idea. The moral of this story, does not appease me. To me, the King looks like a selfish man. As soon as he found a

solution to his problem, he forgot about the same problem which all his countrymen would have been facing at that point of time. In case the king persisted that the whole kingdom should be carpeted, he would have done a greater good to his countrymen, so that not only him, but the entire population could enjoy walking barefoot. I am not saying this is a logically correct decision, but this could be the intentionally correct decision.

In a way or other, all of us are like this king. We try to protect ourselves and only ourselves in an unsafe world. If there is going to be indefinite strike, we tend to buy and store as much food grains and grocery as possible, so that we do not starve. If there is going to be a fuel price hike, we fill the tank to minimize our expenses. In order to ensure uninterrupted power supply to our house, we install extra-large tubular batteries to store as much power as we can. This is exactly what a reasonable man will do. But the truth is, this is just a temporary solution to a permanent

problem. In the days to come, this will further escalate and things will get worse. If we need a permanent solution, we need an unreasonable man who will look for a solution beyond the purview of his self. While a reasonable man is concerned about his own safety and security an unreasonable man is selfless in motive and is truly fearless amidst so much uncertainties.

Many unreasonable people have walked this planet making this world a better place. We have seen unreasonable men in the form of Gandhi who quit his job in South Africa and returned to India, to free his countrymen from the clutches of the British Empire; in the form of Mother Teresa who left her home country, to serve the poor and the uncared people in the streets

of Kolkatta in the form of Narayanan Krishnan, who has quit his job from a 5 start hotel and is now feeding the desperate people in the streets of Madurai.

There are many such examples, of selfless social leaders. The world is need of more such unreasonable men. Dare to be one and make a difference!

Happy Reading,

D.Senthil Kannan

Article Dated Feb'13