A tale of the six blind men and the elephant.
Six blind men found themselves around an animal. Their were told that the animal was an elephant. They were all aloud to touch the animal once and describe what they felt, hence giving a definition of the animal. The first blind man approached the elephant, tripped and felt against the animals’ belly. “So solid”: he said “This animal must look like a wall.” The second blind man stretched his arms and touched the elephants’ fang. “My god, this animal looks like a spear!”
The third blind man walked against its trunk. He described the elephant as a snake. The fourth blind man, who limps, felt the one leg of the elephant and said: “This is obvious, an elephant so strong and thick – it must be like a tree!”. The fifth blind man got also his chance to touch the animal, and felt its ears.“This creature looks more like a fan”. Finally the sixth blind man approached the animal and different from the others, the creature touched the blind man instead of get touched. The sixth blind man got a whipped by the animals’ tail and described the elephant as piece of rope.
“So oft in disputes of reality
The disputants, I ween
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen! “
(John Godfrey Saxe 1816-1887)
Born in Rio de Janeiro, now in Amsterdam, graduated at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and the Radboud University (Nijmegen) with degrees in Marketing Science and Branding. Alfredo is a citizen of the world and a product of pragmatism. He is a consumer, a marketer, a business strategist and a full-time student. Alfredo travels, listens to stories and shares them, loves music and reads all that comes in his path.
Alfredo is the co-founder of Klatergoud, a freelance marketing & communication consultant and co-founder/owner of Fromanteel watches. His main interests are branding, creative communication, (luxury) marketing strategy and entrepreneurship.