“Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.” Ambrose Bierce
An Anecdote From The Reader’s Digest:
“Our daughter had adopted a stray cat. To my distress, he began to use the back of our new sofa as a scratching post.
“Don’t worry,” my husband reassured me. I’ll have him trained in no time.”
I watched for several days as my husband patiently ‘trained’ our new pet. Whenever the cat scratched, my husband deposited him outdoors to teach him a lesson.
The cat learned quickly. For the next 16 years, whenever he wanted to go outside, he scratched the back of the sofa.”
Just made me think . . .
How often in our communication not only with those of different species but also with those of our own, do we fail to get across the message? Whatever our intentions, we may be teaching something totally different or opposite of what we intend. Consequences of the lessons taught (cat forever scratching the couch) are determined not by the teacher’s intentions but by the student’s understanding (interpretation) of the lesson. A useful bit of insight for any us as we seek to communicate an idea or principle to another, isn’t it?
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