Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Hunger is Danger

At this year's TED conference there was a snippet of programming where a gentleman told a story of a husky dog chained to the ground, and how a polar bear had approached out of the blue. The story goes that the bear did not eat the dog, but instead engaged in playful embrace. It took me many Google searches to finally find one of these images, which is right here.

Reason why I remembered this story was because I was explaining to a colleague how organizational politics tend to work at elite institutions. The problem with a place like MIT is that everybody's smart here. Heck there's even movies like Goodwill Hunting where the MIT custodian's an ubergenius. I've seen it happen. The rats here have PhD equivalents. Smartness is everywhere. In any case, an ecosystem of brilliance is a perfect example of the principle of the survival of the fittest. The smarter you are, the longer you will tend to survive.

There's all kind of intellectual animals in any given system. Some of the classical "dark side" brethren could include superpredators like a shark or wolf; others might be smallscale scavengers like hyenas or, at even smaller scales, trying to avoid detection like mice. The majority tend to be well-meaning, decent animals that are just trying to get to the waterhole and make life work -- like the antelopes or sheep. I guess using this analogy, the role of "human" would be played by the government/institution or any other force that tries to game the ecosystem to their advantage through ill-/well-intentioned manipulation.

The polar bear story is important, because it makes you remember that even the superpredators can be as calm and gentle as any other law-abiding animal when they're not hungry. And I get shivers up my spine thinking of a large pack of hungry mice knocking on my door. Hunger is a funny thing. It can make anything or anybody behave in an unfortunate way.

Lesson for the day is to stay away from superpredators when they're hungry, but embrace their presence when the food is plenty for everyone. If you're hungry, try to eat your own food instead of taking someone else's meal, or even better go through the trouble of growing your own food and cooking for yourself. Feed a friend, or enemy, when you have the chance. You might make a few more friends this way. I do.

Oh yes, what am I? A jellyfish of course. Floating along the way ...