December 3rd 2006 – 19:13 – HCMC
Whenever C enters a room where there are many people sitting inside, his mind gets obsessed with the number of responses he got for his greeting. He usually greets as soon as he enters the room with loud voice to make sure everyone in the room feels his presence. However, the ratio of number of people who respond to his greeting to the number of all people in the room never exceeds a half. This causes a real problem for him even though it seems stupid to think like this. He worries about the people’s thoughts for himself and makes some sequential speculations for the possible reasons.
If everybody responds him, he knows that he is supposed to think as if he is loved and recognized by everyone in the room. However, he still can not stop doubting about people’s real thoughts for him. He thinks that these people in the room might have discussed about him before he arrived and agreed on giving a strong response to his greeting. But should they do such a thing? They might think that C is an important person and he deserves a warm welcome. Or they might worry about making C angry. Or they might be afraid of being blamed with stereotype. Acting all together makes more sense than acting differently. This gives them a kind of solidarity and integrity. They feel the strong spirit of being one and stiff. Since they greet everyone by the same way, nobody can have anything to worry about their second thoughts. The unity in their voice can clears up all the suspicious thoughts. They all seem welcome so there will be more people coming inside to the room to be greeted by the same way. At the end, this might trouble some of them who want to keep the population of the room at a reasonable amount. However, they are not able to determine the level of “enough”. So they continue responding everyone’s greetings by the same way even though they do not want to do that any more. At this point C thinks that wherever people fail to negotiate on the rules, dishonesty and cheating emerge. All of them keep greeting all the guests with the same unity and same integrity.
Whenever C enters a room where there are many people sitting inside, his mind gets obsessed with the number of responses he got for his greeting. He usually greets as soon as he enters the room with loud voice to make sure everyone in the room feels his presence. However, the ratio of number of people who respond to his greeting to the number of all people in the room never exceeds a half. This causes a real problem for him even though it seems stupid to think like this. He worries about the people’s thoughts for himself and makes some sequential speculations for the possible reasons.
If everybody responds him, he knows that he is supposed to think as if he is loved and recognized by everyone in the room. However, he still can not stop doubting about people’s real thoughts for him. He thinks that these people in the room might have discussed about him before he arrived and agreed on giving a strong response to his greeting. But should they do such a thing? They might think that C is an important person and he deserves a warm welcome. Or they might worry about making C angry. Or they might be afraid of being blamed with stereotype. Acting all together makes more sense than acting differently. This gives them a kind of solidarity and integrity. They feel the strong spirit of being one and stiff. Since they greet everyone by the same way, nobody can have anything to worry about their second thoughts. The unity in their voice can clears up all the suspicious thoughts. They all seem welcome so there will be more people coming inside to the room to be greeted by the same way. At the end, this might trouble some of them who want to keep the population of the room at a reasonable amount. However, they are not able to determine the level of “enough”. So they continue responding everyone’s greetings by the same way even though they do not want to do that any more. At this point C thinks that wherever people fail to negotiate on the rules, dishonesty and cheating emerge. All of them keep greeting all the guests with the same unity and same integrity.
One day, an individual wants to be more honest than the others in the room. She thinks that people in the room do not have to lie for the sake of integrity because what they do is only to cheat themselves in a way ostriches put their heads in the sand. She wants to make a difference and stops greeting new comers. Although she expects to be praised for her brave idea, others accuse her of being “a deviant from normal”. They ask her not to destroy the unity of the room and keep going with the traditional welcome greetings. However, she believes whoever deviates from honesty can cause many other problems even though he/she does not really mean. She resists in her standing and tries to convince other individuals with her independent ideas. She gets a few friends who support them but still the majority behaves in the traditional way. These few people start their own way and they sometimes do not greet the new comers if they think those are not really welcome. This new way troubles the unity supporters. Because they make up the majority, they start to threaten the minority with “exemption”. “If you continue being different in the room, we will send you away and you will not benefit from the facilities of this room.” But still these a few people who want to show that they are doing the right thing start meeting outside the room to find a solution for the problem. One of them suggests that “Let’s post a paper which reads “No entry” on the door”. This idea creates a festival environment in the meeting. But soon they realize that this also causes a problem because a note which says “no entry” is not selective. It stops everyone who wants to enter the room even though they are welcome by everyone. Another member of this minority suggests adding a few more words to the note: “No entry unless authorized” This looks better others say but still they have to define the specifications of a person who is authorized to enter and who is not! Since they can not find a better solution, they decide to offer the last version of the note to the majority.
The majority rejects all sorts of attempts to post a note on the door. They claim that a paper on the door will isolate the room from the external world and the room residents will be strangers in all other rooms. They repeat asking minority to return to the beginning point and stop causing further problems. If there is a real problem, then majority is the only group which can work on the solution. There is no need for the minorities to worry about the problems of the room because they will never be powerful enough to change the things in the room. Majority passes a new rule for those who do not greet the new comers and causes fractions in the unity of the room.
The majority rejects all sorts of attempts to post a note on the door. They claim that a paper on the door will isolate the room from the external world and the room residents will be strangers in all other rooms. They repeat asking minority to return to the beginning point and stop causing further problems. If there is a real problem, then majority is the only group which can work on the solution. There is no need for the minorities to worry about the problems of the room because they will never be powerful enough to change the things in the room. Majority passes a new rule for those who do not greet the new comers and causes fractions in the unity of the room.
*** To be continued…
