The Well Frog
This book excerpt is from Chapter 1 of my upcoming book, A Case of Culture, now available on Amazon (99¢ ebook promo) & Kobo. Learn more about the book here.
Years ago, I began reading the works of Swami Vivekananda. His wisdom was profound, and I was not yet at the age or maturity to understand it all. But one story he did share, a story he would go on to narrate at his notable speech at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions, was the first thing that came to my mind when I learned about the case of this Vietnamese boy. Swami Vivekananda told a story of a frog that lived in a well, that was born and brought up there and spent its entire life believing its small well to be the entire world. One day, another frog came and fell into the well.
“Where are you from?” the first frog asked.
“I am from the sea,” the second frog responded.
“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how can you compare the sea with your little well?”
Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”
The frog of the sea exclaimed, “What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”
“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”
It was as Swami Vivekananda explained, and as Benjamin Hoff alluded to in his quote at the beginning of this chapter: “I am sitting in my own well and thinking that the whole world is my little well.” It is our own experiences that restrict us from considering the possibility that there are experiences and customs and practices and cultures beyond our own that are equally valid. As Hoff says, “[We are] restricted by [our] own learning.”
These misunderstandings, these biases and preconceived notions, are not isolated to any one culture. They happen more frequently than we might think. And more often than not, there’s a grim ending to the story. Every culture has its own set of beliefs, and as a result, its own set of misunderstandings when it comes into contact with another culture.
In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, A Case of Culture. If you would like to learn more about what happens next, you can find the rest of the story in Chapter 1 of my book, out now on Amazon (99¢ ebook promo) and Kobo. If you enjoyed this book excerpt, please consider subscribing to this weekly excerpt series and sharing it with your network. To learn more about the book, visit my website. If you would like to connect with me, you can reach me here via email at snigdha.nandipati@gmail.com or @snigdhanandiauthor on Instagram and Facebook.
