Strength in Togetherness

It's Father's Day today and fathers around the world for literally 24 hours as the globe turns and time changes in different parts of earth, will be spoilt rotten as mothers and children dote on them. Happy Father's Day. Enjoy it!

As I sat early this morning thinking about this day, a story kept playing and replaying itself in my head, itching to come out; itching to be told. It's a familiar story, really. Nothing extraordinary. It's a story about people. It's a story about people as individuals on their own as disparate entities and in a collective; their achievements (and mishaps) on their own and in a collective.

I kept wondering, as I pondered the story: Is it not that at the core of who we are as individuals, as people, is significance, recognition validation, no matter our station in life? Firstly, there is the Cartesian, individualistic affirmation: "I think, therefore, I am". But could we not argue: It is precisely because of another individual that "I am", that "I think"? The stimulation for my thinking, for who I am, from whom I draw strength and sustenance to be, to think, is another individual, other individuals, it could be concluded.

That, secondly, is the essence of the African (South African), more inclusive saying: "Motho ke motho ka batho ba bang". I am who I am because of others, thus affirming, recognising and affording significance to others who give me my essence as a human being. The tacit acquiescence here is that I could not know who I am without the presence of others. My strengths and my weaknesses; my beauty or my ugliness, I would not know. I would not know whether I can run fast or slow; a good speaker or bad; an excellent writer or hopeless one. I could not know all of these things without validation from my fellow human beings who, through their own validation too, would know my attributes.

That is the thinking that played in my head this morning as I, having reversed roles this father's day, cleaned up the kitchen to prepare a simple meal of soft porridge, avocado (from my yard), cheese, bread and a tumeric-ginger-honey tea for family who still slept peacefully. That thought of individuality and togetherness reminded me of a childhood story that has significance for us the community of Wealthy Affiliate.

Every black South African my age knows the story from elementary school, though not in the embellished manner it is recounted here. The essence, however, is the same. There was once a father who had many children, most of them boys. He had dreams of untold success for all his children but mostly for his boys. As every parent knows, children can be competitive, especially boys. So, with a heavy heart, the father watched as the competition - strife, really - intensified among his sons for every activity they had to perform. This saddened him deeply for he knew full well that there would be no unified success to speak of in the future if this contention continues. His long experience had taught him that only in unity, togetherness lies strength.

One winter evening the father gathered his sons around a fire. He had earlier collected breakable sticks of wood that he had separated into different sizes and tied together - one stick, two, three, four, five ...ten sticks tied together. He asked his "weakest" and often bullied son, to break the one stick that was large enough in diameter but knew he could easily break it. He then asked the next, also not so strong son to break the two sticks, He struggled somewhat, but with a little more effort, he broke the sticks. So he asked son after son, relative to each's strength, to break the bundles. There was puffing and heaving as each tried to overcome each bundle, with lots of protest of unfairness and the silliness of the whole exercise. From the bundle of four, there was tremendous struggle to break the sticks, including his strongest son who was given the bundle of ten. He simply could not break it!

After every son was composed and wondering what the whole fuss was about - for perhaps the first time, he noticed consensus among them - he revealed the purpose. It is easy, he pointed out to them, to break one, even two or three twigs or sticks tied together. But to break four, five, six or even seven was much more difficult; bundles of eight, nine and ten near impossible to break, except by isolating the sticks to breakable size, as some boys attempted, but were strongly forbidden.

At the end the father simply said: "There is strength in togetherness". If they would work together without strife, but with knowledge and understanding of each other and the task at hand, they would be formidable, now and in the future. Yes, individuals achieve, and there is many an example in history, but behind that achievement are other individuals and collectives of individuals, to buttress and sustain that success, to recognize it and make it significant. The effort is by the individual, but the support, the recognition, the validation is collective.

"There is strength in togetherness". Alternatively. "Unity is strength".

Therein lies the essence of Wealthy Affiliate: the strength in our togetherness, as individuals all around the world, unified by this online platform. We embrace each other with all our different attributes, supporting one another, encouraging each other on a journey of personal, yet phenomenal collective success. All it requires is individual effort, for me, for you, to get on the trampoline and begin to jump, ever so gently, increasing the pace and the just to the highest the trampoline can propel you, knowing, as you come down, that there is cushioned support for a gentle landing. Then? The exhilaration! The celebration of success!

Thank you for taking the time to "listen" to my rumination. I hope it triggers a thought or two you would like to share below.

Awesomeness!

Mojalefa.