Brian

Let me tell you a story of a man named Brian.

Brian lived alone in a one room apartment, kind of like a box really.

Apart from the necessities, the only items he owned were a broom handle, an old fashioned curly corded telephone and a marker pen.

All the interior walls of his room had been painted white (in fact the painting supplies were still over in the corner).

Brian never left that room, he couldn’t go outside,but everything he needed to survive was delivered to him.

Unable to interact directly with the world, Brian would spend his days looking out the window, talking on the telephone or feeling around by poking the broom handle through a slot where the mail arrived.

With this very limited range of "sensory" input Brian often had to guess at what was actually happening outside, and to make this easier he began writing notes on the walls.

As he experienced things in his limited way he would make more and more notes.

Writing, and drawing, and connecting things together with lines,until he built an understanding of what was going on outside.

Over time he built up a massive amount of detail in his notes, and it soon became quick and easy to refer to the walls when he saw something or heard something or felt something.

In fact it got so that even from the tiniest bit of information coming in through the windows, or the telephone, or by poking around with his stick,he could build a huge amount of meaning and understanding.

All from the writing on his walls.

Many years passed and people started to hear about Brian.

They would call him to ask questions based on the wisdom of the walls.He would answer questions, help them make decisions, and decide on what actions to take.

But gradually the people began to notice a problem.

Many of the things written on Brian's walls were based on original knowledge gained when he didn’t really understand what was going on outside.

Many of the writings on his walls, although very detailed, had incorrect information at their core.

So sometimes his answers seemed correct, and were backed up by years of experience,but they were flawed at the very deepest level.

And the people started to lose faith in Brian.

And Brian lost faith in himself too.

Then one day a wise old man heard about the man who lived in a box, and paid Brian a visit.

He spoke to him on the telephone, while he peered in through the windows.

He listened to Brian talk about how things had been going so well,but were now falling apart because of those errors he’d made before he understood the world.

How the results he was getting were hampered by old writing on his walls.

The wise old man thought for a moment, then pointed to the corner of the room where the paint still sat, under a dust sheet, and said,

“Surely all you need to do is paint over some of the old writing and write them anew?”

And from that day Brain’s life, and the lives of people who came to see him, were never the same again.

And, of course, when you switch a couple of letters around it's obvious that

"Brian" becomes "Brain"

What writing on your walls do we need to re-write ?

And how long are you going to wait to start?

and me, well...

I wouldn't call myself old, but I've been called 'wise' more than a few times....

and most of all ?

I know where you keep the paint and the marker pen.

Let me help you re-write some of the stuff on your walls.