To be enlightened or to be benighted

Post 2 Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened,
Heed only one side and you will be benighted.


When you are enlightened on a matter, you show true and deep understanding of it. The reverse is true. When you are benighted, you are completely without knowledge.

When there is a misunderstanding between two friends, you must listen to both sides to have a clearer picture of why there is a discord between them. However, when you heed only one side, you will be accused of being bias. You will be benighted because you have not heard the other side of the story for you to make value judgment. Therefore, people with benighted minds will draw their foregone conclusion without finding out the true facts of a matter. A benighted person who thought that the world was flat, for example, might need someone to enlighten him!

Are you popular among your classmates? Do you think twice before you act? Will your friends turn to you for help when they are in trouble? If your answers are in the positive, then you tend to be a leader and not a follower. You are a good listener. You are looked up to by your classmates because you are able to discern good from bad, and truth from falsehood. You are affable because you are easy to talk to and have a pleasant disposition. When you make friends instead of enemies among your peers, you will find every day of your school or college life interesting and exciting.

I shall introduce a proverb to you, if you have yet to hear of it: Three cobblers with their wits combined, equal Zhuge Liang the mastermind.

A cobbler is a shoemaker or repairer. Zhuge Liang was the well-known mastermind of war in ancient China. Generally, a cobbler may not be as wise as a mastermind. Nevertheless, the wisdom of three cobblers combined is as powerful as one mastermind because the wisdom of the masses exceeds that of the wisest individual. Therefore when you lend your ears to your friends, you get a helicopter view of a matter without prejudice. You will be more inclined to see things from a more impartial angle. Hence, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. Always listen to both sides.

Just to digress, there is a Japanese fairy tale on two frogs, Osaka Frog and Kyoto Frog, which I should like to share with you.

Once upon a time in Japan there lived two frogs. One lived in Osaka, a city by the sea; and the other lived in a clear little stream which went through the town of Kyoto. Kyoto Frog wanted to visit Osaka, and Osaka Frog dreamt of seeing Kyoto. One morning they happened to meet each other at the top of a mountain. They both expressed their wish to see and visit their dream places.

Suddenly, Kyoto Frog had an idea and said, "We are tiny as compared to the tall grass. What we need to do is just to stand on our hind legs and then we can see the places we are going to." They then decided to stand up on their hind legs, and hold onto each other. Osaka Frog jumped up and put his front feet on his friend’s shoulders. The frogs stood high up on their toes, with Kyoto Frog facing towards Osaka, and Osaka Frog facing towards Kyoto. When they stood up their large eyes lay in the back of their heads. Both the frogs did not realise that this would only enable them to look backward and not forward. Osaka Frog commented that Kyoto looked exactly like Osaka; and Kyoto Frog said that Osaka was no different from Kyoto.

They were wrong in their judgment of how Kyoto and Osaka actually looked like. Though they might have been facing the places to which they wanted to go, their eyes beheld the places from which they had come. If someone had enlightened them, they would not have been benighted. If only the frogs had been told to turn around, they would have seen a different picture. This would have allowed Osaka Frog to truly see Kyoto and Kyoto Frog to unmistakably view the city of Osaka.

When you listen to both sides, you see things from two different angles and will be more objective in forming your opinion.

14 July 2009