Tunnel Vision

 

For about a decade, I lived in a cooperative household (about a mile west of the University of Washington, in Seattle).  It was highly educational.

During this time, someone who lived in the house … decided to rent a piano. And I happened to be around when it arrived.

Two (professional) piano movers loaded it (an upright grand) onto a piano dolly, and brought it down the ramp from their truck, up a sloping concrete driveway, through the “garage” and into the basement bedroom – its requested destination.  Now, this whole time, the piano was on its end (to make it easier to get through doorways, and so on. However … when they tried to turn the piano upright, they found that the ceiling was too low. The distance between the floor and the ceiling was less than the diagonal of the piano’s back –  [upper right corner to the lower left corner]

So …

The movers put the piano back onto the dolly, took it back to the truck the way they had come, and rolled it back onto the truck.  This was the easiest way to get it into the living room (the 2nd preference) … because of the long flight of stairs from the sidewalk up to the front door.  They maneuvered the truck so that they could take advantage of their [long] loading ramp – to get the piano up the stairs. I believe they were able to reach their ramp all the way to the top landing.  But whatever they had to do, they managed to do it. They were, after all – professionals.

They put the piano in our living room.

 

But, you know what?

 

They could have saved themselves most of the work – if (when they had gotten the piano into the basement room) they had simply laid the piano on its back … and then stood it upright.  If they had thought of that possibility, they would have been quickly successful.  But they didn’t think of it.

I measured it the next day … it would have worked.  

The diagonal of the bottom was less than the ceiling height  … which means they could have rolled it onto its back (from its on-end position).  And, of course, the diagonal of the end of the piano was well less than the ceiling height.  So – once on its back, they could easily have stood it upright.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post – we sometimes make a mistake because we come to a conclusion about the nature of our situation – which conclusion turns out to be erroneous – despite the fact that there was evidence supporting our conclusion.

 

But – the mistake the (above) piano movers made … was a bit different.

Sometimes we make a mistake because we fail to explore our options.

The professionals could have put the piano in its preferred destination … if they had simply done one more step. Though they could not roll the piano from on-end to upright directly, they could easily have righted it from a lying flat position.

 

This is pertinent … because – the handful of (super-rich) people who own MultiNational Corporations which (mainly) determine how things are currently being done in this world … (apparently) believe – that it is necessary to exploit in order to get rich.

But – what it that’s wrong? (by which I mean – “erroneous”) … Then what?

 

What if – giving and service are actually the basis of wealth?

 

 

And – if we fail to make the connection between Sustainability … and Survival?

 

It’s not like we’ll just have to load our piano back onto our truck and work hard to put it on the main floor.

No.

 

We’re talking about cockroaches – as the Dominant Life-Form !

 

 

I suspect that the Tunnel Vision responsible for our current way of doing things … is rooted in Selfishness and Self-Absorption.

 

And the fact that these things (selfishness & self-absorption) are common … does not make them any less deadly.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBwEetB-oU    (Simon Sinek  – The Key to Success)