As a child growing up in Los Angeles in the '60s, I was constantly exposed to the hippie culture, primarily because my mom and dad were hippies, and still are in many ways. We had beads hanging in doorways, learned candle making, tie-dyeing, leather working, and various other "head shop" crafts. There was psychedelic music and teachings from the East. One of my earliest memories is the children's version of the Teachings of Buddha.

The lessons from that book stuck with me. The pictures were nice, and the colors caught my attention in a big way, but somehow the message was not lost on me. The story that I will relay to you is the story of the blind men and the elephant.

So Many Views, So Little Time
The Buddha was asked a question by his disciples concerning teachers and scribes who were quarreling among themselves. The Buddha shared with them the story of the blind men and the elephant.

Many times we take our beliefs in the system we are working on or the language in which we program to a spiritual level. If you have ever been in the midst of a heated discussion between .NET versus Java people, or the classic VB and PowerBuilder, you know that tempers can flare. The point of this story is that we all play a role, and there is enough room for many points of view. The Buddha wants us to look at the bigger picture - the broader world view.

The Raja Came to Play Baby!!
The story is that a Raja was made aware of quarreling in his world and was asked to help make some sense of it all. The Raja told his servant to gather together all of the blind men in his kingdom and an elephant. When that was done, he led each blind man to a different part of the elephant and asked them to touch it. One man felt only the tusk, another the skin, still another the foot, and so on.

For those of us working in IT, it is very easy to believe that having worked in one aspect of our technology, that is all that matters. As developers, we are particularly fond of this view. But it is easy to lose track of our brethren.

When the men were brought together again, each was asked to describe the elephant to the Raja. The man who felt the tusk said the elephant was long and smooth like a plough; the man who touched the skin described it as rough and hairy, while the man who felt his foot said the elephant was like a pillar, and the man who felt the tail described it as being brushy.

When was the last time we shared our appreciation of our DBA people? There should be a courtesy holiday once a year where you take all of the DBAs out to lunch and celebrate the joy they bring. The DBAs help our systems run quickly, they help us look things up with their happy indexes, and they keep our data normal. The DBAs are one of the truly vital functions, and it is easy to forget them. They are not a tusk, but a part of the whole that makes up our IT world.

And then the men began to quarrel and fight among themselves, shouting about what the elephant was and wasn't. Not one of them remained open to the possibility that they had only touched a single part of the whole.

And let us not forget our network administrators. These guys keep us connected. There is nothing as vital as excellent connectivity, and we should thank our network guys for their attention to security and managing the resources. They are like the legs, the pillars on which we stand.

The Raja was delighted to see the object lesson that was being taught. The Buddha made sure that his disciples understood that the teachers and scribes who were fighting were going on blind in this world, like a man touching a single thing and believing that he has found it all.

Of course, the system admins, the holiest of UNIX priests in their lab coats and their cryptic scriptures - these gentlemen are their very own priesthood, and the ensuing arguments with them are full of passion and fervor. Don't forget these precious souls and their systems - they also are at the heart of our world.

The PC techs and the hardware guys, what of them? They are equally essential. Who among us can function for a split second without good, working hardware? There has to be bones and structure to the elephant and the PC.

In the End...
It is easy to lose sight of the big picture, of the vitality of every part of the structure in our computing world. Somehow my mom and dad understood that I should learn the lessons of the many parts that make up the world around us. And in the process to never really believe that I had found the end of the road. These are lessons I have brought with me into my IT career. Keep your eyes on the big picture.

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim For preacher and monk the honored name! For, quarreling, each to his view they cling. Such folk see only one side of a thing.
- The Blind Men and The Elephant