Towers and bricks

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LAST Sunday I was at a Toastmasters speech contest. Toastmasters International is an educational organisation devoted to the individuals. Through its principle activity — public speaking – it seeks to help its members towards self-development and the achievement of their full potential.

A BRICK : As I stood on one of the thousands of towers I could see the Wall snaking into the distance, climbing over mountains and dipping into valleys.

The particular contest was called Table Topic, which in fact was a test of the contestants’ impromptu speaking skill. Each contestant was given a topic and he had to give a two-minute rendering on the subject within five seconds. As we all know public speaking is a stressful enough activity but to be expected to speak off the cuff and in front of hundred of pairs of eyes seems to be a rather masochistic endeavour. For the audience it was rather fun as we watched those brave souls froze momentarily like rabbit caught in a car’s headlights. Perhaps there is a sadistic bend in all of us.

Of course, it is always so much easier watching from the sideline. So, while the contestants were fretting under the spotlight on stage, frantically racking their brains for ideas, we, the audience, were smugly thinking: “he could have said this or he should have done that.”  Armchair critics indeed!

However, surprisingly all the contestants did very well and managed to come up with meaningful exposition on the subject, which was “a tower starts with a brick”. In fact they expressed some very profound thoughts. Now, with the benefit of time, I can build on their ideas and knock them together for this week’s offer.

Firstly the topic “towers and bricks” reminds me of the value of courage to start and the power of resilience. A building, whether of modest proportion or towering stature, or an enterprise, be it small or big, has to start somewhere – the “first brick.”  It is about getting started, about not being daunted by seriousness of the challenge. It is about accepting that with a start there is a probability of success as opposed to the certainty of failure if one were to sit on one’s hands and just dream. Yes, it is about “get up and go!”

However, a first brick is just a first one brick; it has to be followed by bricks after bricks until the tower of one’s dream is built.

History, ancient and contemporary, is replete with examples of people who have followed that axiom and created their empires. Let me just cite one. The SM Prime Holdings, Incorporated is a Philippine business empire that, among other things, owns at least 30 (and counting) giant malls across the Republic. Some of them are so big that it would take more than a full day to explore them.

The owner and founder, Henry Sy, is rated among the world’s richest men. If anyone who knows about starting small and building brick by brick it would be Henry Sy. His life is an example of that philosophy. He came to the Philippines from China at the young age of 12. The family opened a small convenience store in downtown Manila. They worked hard from dawn to past dusk. It took over half a century of hard work and perseverance for Henry Sy to build his tower of success.

We hear it too often, “Success is 90 per cent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration”, yet many of us still persisted in the folly in believing that it can come without any perspiration on our part. Charlatans and con artists are well aware of this human failing and generally are having a field day selling false dreams. Very often I come across newspaper advertisements of wondrous seminars where the speakers promise to impart the secret of how to become a millionaire in a matter of months (some even brazenly promised in just a few weeks) or how to start a thriving business with absolutely nothing. I usually frown on such dubious claims but thought that they could cause no serious harm. That was until it happened to a friend of mine. Let’s just call him John.

John was an enthusiastic and positive young man. Maybe he was too positive for his own good (I have to bite my tongue when saying this because I always believe that one should have a positive attitude in life). One day, he attended one seminar, one that promised to teach how to build a tower without bricks, so to speak, and achieve success in double quick time. He came back starry-eyed and was totally irrepressible. He tried his hand at a few businesses and eventually hit upon opening a restaurant. He must have had a knack for cooking for in just a few weeks his little eating-house was doing good business.

That’s when his heart became bigger than his head. Flushed by the initial success he decided to go big, real big. He made his round among his friends, inviting them to invest in his venture. But everyone was cautioning him to be a bit more patient. Generally, the advice was for him to continue with his venture for a few more months before challenging the big franchises. He was undaunted and took to raising his capitals from less friendly sources. He opened his new place, a spanking fully air-conditioned glass fronted joint, with a bang. Business was good but the wolves were unrelenting. As quickly as he made his money and just as quickly he lost them to the sharks. One day he phoned me asking if I wanted to buy his computer and printer. I knew he was in deep water, very deep water. One day I found his place shuttered up.

“Where is John? I asked his neighbour.

“John, cau lo, loh.” replied the man with a sake of his head. (“cau lo” in Hokkien means “ran away”)

Poor John, he had sought to build the tower of his dream without bricks and it collapsed like a house of cards.

“Towers and bricks” also remind me of another fact – plain as individual bricks may be but with the clever putting together of them one can create something as magnificent as the Great Wall of China, to name just one. It is indeed an example of the whole is greater than the sum total of the parts.

I had the opportunity to visit that great man-made structure a few years ago. As I stood on one of the thousands of towers I could see the Wall snaking into the distance, climbing over mountains and dipping into valleys. It was an awe-inspiring sight. The sound of the wind sounded like howls and screams. My guide, Eddy, (many Chinese guides have taken to adopting English names to make it easier for tourists) a consummate storyteller, said, “that is the sound of a million souls crying.”

“What do you mean?” I queried.

“When you look at the Great Wall you see a giant edifice. Do you see the millions of bricks that create this magnificent structure?”

“Now these bricks,” Eddy continued, “are not just bricks. They are the representation of the hundreds of thousands of workers who died building this wall for the Chin Emperor. Each one of these bricks had to be carried by hands by these nameless heroes. Let us bow our heads and pay a silent respect to them.”

Do you think I would be so heartless as not to devote a minute of silence to the departed souls of over three thousand years ago?

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