An Agile Parable

Many millennia ago, there was a village that people struggled to survive. But then one day a man arrived and he sat by a lake and pulled fish from the lake. He cooked them and ate them. The smell from the cooking attracted people and they were hungry so the man shared his food. But then more and more people came and even though he shared all he had it was not enough. The man was wise, and realized that giving others fish, while generous and meeting their immediate needs, was not enough. So he selected some of the wisest people and taught them how to fish and even how to teach others how to fish. And word spread of both the man and his followers and he was revered.

Fishing was so simple too, it was amazing no one had thought of it before. It had only 4 parts to it. One would take a long stick, tie a string to it and a hook on the other end of the string. One could put bait on it as well. This method was not only simple, it was flexible.   One could use a stick from any tree, or any kind of string and any kind of hook. It was so flexible the bait could be anything from a bit of food or even just something shiny. Amazing.

However, there was another village that had heard of this man, because word of his wisdom had spread far and wide. They lived near a river and could see that there were fish in the river, but they could not catch them. The method that worked in the lake did not seem to work there. So they tried more fishing lines and more hooks, bigger hooks, and different kinds of bait, but nothing seemed to work.  They had been told that the lake method could be used everywhere and that when there were problems they should remove the problems. So they decided to dam up the river and make a pool and fish from the lake they had now created. But this caused new problems and fish seemed less plentiful in the still waters.

Fortunately another person came a long and started pulling fish from the river. And she was both wise and generous. And she shared her fish. And soon word of her ability to pull fish out of a flowing river was known throughout the area and soon many people flocked to her. And she now had more people asking for fish than she could provide. And even though she was generous and gave her fish away there was not enough to go around. So she too taught people how to fish in rivers – using small nets. And this method was not only effective in the rivers, but could be used in the lakes as well.

And then a third person came along and asked the villagers – “why do you use one or the other? Why don’t you take advantage of each? Look to see which one is appropriate and then do that?” And the villagers responded that only one of the methods could be the best so each of them had studied the intricacies involved of the method they had chosen because but only had time to study one approach.

So many of the people in this time were satisfied. And life was good. But it turned out that in some places that had rivers and lakes, there were different kinds of animals that crawled along the shore or at the bottom of the lake. And when fish were scarce people looked at these animals and wished they could catch them. Sometimes they did and so they thought that hooks and nets were all that were needed and that these would be effective if they just tried harder and listened to their mentors more.

Eventually, another person came to this village and saw that there was abundance in the waters but that not enough of it was being caught by the people to satisfy them.  And she had studied fishing and netting and combining of the methods – so she knew what they could do. But she asked, “why are you just fishing with string and using nets?” And they said because that is what they were taught and they saw success that the other villages had had with them so they had figured they must be doing something wrong.

And she said, yes, those are very good things to do in certain situations. But are we trying to catch fish or obtain food? Which is the real purpose, the practice or the objective? The villagers were surprised at her question. They had been taught to look at how to fish better but they now realized that there were more than fish that could be caught and eaten. So the woman told them, let’s look at what fishing is. It’s a way to catch things in the water. Yes, one way uses a stick, string, hook and bait. The other uses nets. But what do they have in common? They both have the purpose of catching fish to eat. They both use a method to attract the fish – using bait or finding a place where fish go by on their own. They both have a way to snare the fish. But both seem to work best only in certain situations, and only for fish. 

She asked them to consider – if our purpose is to catch food are there other ways?  And in using the other ways, we can combine what we have learned from fishing with hooks and nets. And a villager came up with the idea to build traps with bait inside to attract the crabs and lobsters.  And the people thought that was a good idea. So they built crab and lobster traps and put them out. And while waiting for the traps to catch something they fished with strings and nets. They even combined the ideas by putting food in the water and then using nets to gather the fish that it attracted.

And they caught many fish and crabs and lobsters and life was good.