Loyalty and Partnerships - No. 74. The Bear and the Two Travelers - The Essential Aesop? - Back to Basics Abridgment Series
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~ Leonardo da Vinci (Adopted by Steve Jobs)
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Two men were traveling together, when a Bear began to chase them.?
One man pushed the other man aside and climbed up a tree.?The other man, seeing that he would be attacked, fell flat on the ground, and played dead.?
The Bear came up to the man on the ground and checked him with his snout all over and then departed, for Bears will not eat dead things.?
Afterwards, the other traveler came down from the tree and asked, “What did the Bear whisper in your ear?” His friend replied: “Never travel with a friend who deserts you in danger.”
Moral of the Story: Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends. Sacrifice is the test of loyalty; no sacrifice, no test.
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Introduction?- The Essential Aesop -?Epilogue
Related Article:?Mutual Loyalty. No. 21. The Two Travelers and the Purse - The Essential Aesop? - Back to Basics Abridgment Series; Going It Alone - Business of Aesop? No. 21. - Two Travelers and the Purse; Is It Worth It? - No. 72. The Tortoise and the Birds - The Essential Aesop?- Back to Basics Abridgment Series
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Why We Loved It:??This is a beautiful little fable, teaching us a great lesson about life. Loyalty and sacrifice.
Aesop reminds us that wisdom is the ability to predict, but, without experience, predictions are merely speculations.
Understanding the general rules for an actor is good, but, as granularity increases with control of attributes, so does prediction. Understanding the general nature of animals is good. Understanding general nature of humans is better. But, understanding the nature of a particular human is best.
To know an actor implies a context, and, here, Aesop uses two top contenders: the apex predator, the Man, and the apex predator, the Bear. The key to Man, such as we understand it, is free choice. Nothing has as much freedom of choice as Man. Lesser forms of animals tend to do what is consistent with instinct. But, for Man, there is instinct, and then that pinnacle override: free choice.
Perfect love will tend to do something consistent with love: pure self-sacrifice. Less than perfect love is not quite as reliable, because there are metes and bounds; that is, limitations.
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In this fable, if one Man perfectly loved the other, he would have naturally ran toward the Bear in self-sacrifice to save the other man. But, let us put aside pure love, and decrement to duty. Even where pure love does not exist, there is still duty, which is to act in a manner consistent with love; that is, to know the duty and to do it. Yes, there can be complete congruence between pure love and duty, but we don't need to test for duty in such a case, because, where love exists, duty gets a free ride. Pure love subsumes the test for duty.
Loyalty is a particular form of duty implementation. A mother of pure love is not loyal to her child, per se, because the love embraces the cause. Loyalty implies a discipline to a relationship or cause. And, discipline, such as strength, tends to have its limits.
Working backwards, we know the Man in the tree did not purely love his friend, and we know that the Man in the tree was not compelled by duty to protect his friend. The Man in the tree thought of himself and his own survival. This is basic animal instinct perhaps, but basic instincts tend to be selfish, because survival is naturally selfish.
Aesop asks a few questions: Is there pure love? If yes, the context tends to become immaterial, because pure love does not tend to care about context. If not pure love, the assessment is a framework of lesser corollaries. Can duty get it done? If there is duty, it now depends upon the probability of sufficient discipline in the actor to match the test of the context. And descending, is the test of the context less than the mere affinity? What is the offered selfish pleasure? What is the offered selfish pain?
If we walk through the forest with our loving mother, and we threaten the mother bear's cub? Well, we know how that's going to go. Mother v. Mother.
Here, the Bear tells the Man not to travel with a friend who deserts in a danger. Great advice, understanding that there might not be a second chance from which to profit from the lesson. Here, the Bear gave the Man a pass, and we would say that the Man was unwise, if not foolish, and he just got lucky.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried. Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
~ Shakespeare, Hamlet, Polonius to Laertes
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*?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of?Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of?One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus,?and?The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father,?Arnold Zegarelli, of?The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers.?Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.?
? 2013 Arnold Zegarelli?and?Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.?Gregg can be contacted through?LinkedIn.?Arnold Zegarelli?can be contacted through?Facebook.
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