A few definitions to get things into
perspective:
A fable
is a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.
A kingdom is a piece of land that is ruled by
a king or a queen. A kingdom is often called a monarchy, which means that one person, usually
inheriting their position by birth or marriage, is the leader, or head
of state.
Over
the years, development in trade and technology ‘pushed’ monarchs to improve or acquire
skills to stay relevant. Sounds like a need per survival of the ‘perceived’
fittest theory, but our fables have celebrated the ‘ability to acquire’ too
irrespective of the outcome.
Call it
uncertainty or insecurity of the times ahead, but in the times of monarchy,
succession planning was thought of pretty-early in life. Heir was put into a
training program much early in childhood and fables formed a crucial part of
successor’s development. They spoke about experiences, value adds, valor,
behaviors, failures and triumph to help human process the information received
through experiences and take decisions on the go. I have consciously put
failures first because that is what we expect more of during the times of
epidemic.
Fables
have been a mode to express an afterthought (note - may or may not be the same every
time) that led to a positive outcome. It is important to appreciate that the correlation
was never well researched through. We never told fables around pattern of actions
that led to those morals and then the ‘possible outcome’. Without that pattern
we could never really come up with a starting point to build an algorithm, an
algorithm that can help commoditize the moral, a starting point to perhaps predict
an outcome. And that is how fables give one a flexibility to be ‘happily ever
after’ irrespective of the situation one experienced or a role one played. One could
be a poor farmer and be a ‘happily ever after’, one could be an aspiring
student without a possible reach to best of the education system and still be a
‘happily ever after’ by taking an alternate path to acquire a skill, one could
be a lady fending for needs of the house without any formal knowledge and be a ‘happily
ever after’.
Let’s fast
forward from the time of monarchy and ponder over the topic most sought after
these days i.e. the future of skills. Let me attempt to summarize plethora of
information on future of skills. These are the skills that are hardest to understand and
systematize, and the skills that give — and will continue to give —humans an edge
over robots. While technical proficiency is an
obvious and evolving need, it’s critical that people also cultivate so-called
“human skills,” And they should feel that they can use their own brain power
and experience to actually mold their jobs as we go forward, to adapt at the
pace of change.
To my
mind it’s a vicious circle of the skills needed during an age. It’s a cycle
repeating itself from the times of monarchy, or perhaps earlier than that. But
we are certainly in the need of fables of ‘current times’ that people can relate
with. We need new age heroes (not super-heroes, kings or queens) to help build those
non-systematic skills. Can we crowd source fables from the real-life
experiences we all have today? Fables from not just the wins but losses too
(that we seem to have more of today)? Can the bed-time stories for our kids be borrowed
more and more from such fables?
Once
upon a time there was a queen, queen of her little shop that sold bakery items.
The epidemic hit and her ovens cooled off………but she persisted because she could
take online baking classes! Something she never thought of before.
Once
upon a time there was a king, king of his family with a wife, two kids and
ailing mother. The epidemic hit them, and he lost his job………but he survived
because he never considered any job small (a phenomena that hit us in widely
spreading corporate culture).
Reference:
