Who was Old McDonald …was he related to McDonald's?

• I don't know! I don't think he was related to McDonald's, but there are a lot of people with the same surname, isn't it?
• Once upon a time, there was a song called "Old McDonald had a farm", a riveting childhood favourite

What is the song like?

• It goes like this:

Old McDonald had a farm, ye ai ye ai yo

Continues …

Wow…really sounds like a farm, doesn't it?

• You bet, it sure is a farm, with the children all singing, chic, quack, wo, mu, … non-stop fun!
• But
• That is a side to Old McDonald's farm that is often lost in the joyful, funny singing going on - it is the wisdom of Old McDonald

Wisdom?

• Yap
• Although I don't know a rice grain about the composer of this song or whether it has anything to do with Old McDonald in the first place, Old McDonald is teaching us, young & old, something
• Wisdom - social wisdom

What social wisdom is there to the animal sounds on a farm?

• Have you been to a farm?

Nope, but I have seen farms on TV

• Do you talk to different animals?

For what? I can & will only talk to people

• Are you sure you can talk to all people from all walks of life, with different cultures, speaking different languages & relate to all of them?

Ah…

• Of course, all of us won't be able or willing to talk to all other people
• But
• The world is shrinking … virtually, literally
• One day or another, anyone of us can find face-to-face talking to other people in foreign tongues, what then?
• A chicken & a duck, can they talk & relate?

I don't think so … but …

• But there is & can be a possibility
• For two or more seemingly mutually exclusive entities to communicate, what is the prerequisite?

Hmm … the need & want to be together?

• Yes, the intention to communicate must pre-exist
• The origin or requirement for this intention to communicate is unnecessary, inconsequential & redundant
• With the intention present, what next between the chicken & the duck?

To know someone, we must have some common ground

• The chicken & the duck should have meeting of the minds
• With the intention to communicate and common ground or topic to start off, communication can begin
• But with a chic & a quack, how to reconcile?

Ah … hmm … the chicken starts quacking & the duck chicing? Sounds like I'm woing like a dog?

• Funny … but right on target!
• Herein lies the wisdom of Old McDonald
• Who, amongst the millions, can, is willing to & actually do change & adapt themselves to the circumstances?
• Some may say change the environment, or change the subject or change the channel of communication (like a translator dog?!)
• I'm not inferring that we don't, but think again … carefully
• Which breaks - water or glass? Which snaps in the cyclone - grass or tree? Who learns - grateful loser or sore winner? Who survives - the adaptive mammals or the dominant dinosaurs?
• The answer is obvious - the unbreakable, flexible, learning & surviving

Why?

• Good question
• The world system (I'm referring to the real-world so often used in engineering) is neither within your body nor your family nor your surroundings nor your country nor Earth nor the Solar System nor the Universe
• The world system is much … much more, far more than all our human consciousness, skills & knowledge combined has achieved, can achieve or ever achieve
• Complexity is so abundant that people can only start anything with conceptual ideas, visions & modeling
• If you observe carefully, all present knowledge is founded on concepts which are useful for task events, but ultimately useless in the world system
• The "world" as we people know is not far from the entirely human society, but this is as absurd as some ancient civilisations believing that each of them is the chosen one, the one & only, the "world" is their surroundings, environment, people, etc.
• How far into the dark well can we go?
• Do we want to live in the dark all our precious lives, surrounded by the walls of our ignorance that (oddly) have been painstakingly built up over umpteenth ages?

What are you suggesting?

• The world is not as simple as we know it & simply because of its complexity, it is analogous to a chicken-and-duck problem
• How do we (the chicken) live (talk) directly in (to) the world (the duck)?
• It is adaptation, learning, flexiblility, survival
• Once this is personalised into the consciousness (possessing the intrinsic intention to relate to this world), there is meeting of the minds, thus with skill (ways), practice (techniques), compassion (feeling observations) & wisdom (insights & understanding), the world would come to us in ways that we probably would never have imagined
• Old McDonald has shown a way, in such simplicity that even children are laughing & singing aloud -

Old McDonald had a farm, ye ai ye ai yo