… so I got to the reception of this place, gave my name, my purpose of visit to the receptionist and said who I was meeting. They were expecting me or should anyway. I had been before and all arrangements had been made. She stared at me as if something was missing and I thought to myself ‘there we go again!’. I was not in the mood for whipping out no tail today, so I just stood there tail-less. Her discomfort was increasing and her gaze becoming more piecing, I still was not budging. Unable to take it any longer, she sputtered out, “where is your tail?” Reluctantly I fumbled in my bag, muttering some incomprehensible words whilst producing a miniature tail and stuck it to my behind . Unimpressed but relieved she allowed me the rite of passage with the undisguished look of disappointment. I was not perturbed, mission accomplished with less fuss than I wanted.
The longer your tail the more acceptance, recognition, validation, respect, accolades, name it, you get. The shorter the tail, the less of anything you get and if for whatever reason you decide to appear tail-less, then you guess it! people do not know what to do with you, how to relate to you, they can’t place you and if they can’t place you then they are inclined to discount and dismiss you. And we do not want to be discounted or dismissed, so we all tend to keep some version of a tail in our bags. Some actually keep them permanently stuck to their behind saves a lot of hassle.
Someone I know was about to write a book and was speaking to a somewhat recognised author. The author advised that no one was going to buy or read his book unless he has a tail. He tried to argue that what about if he had some profound insight of great benefit to mankind in easy to digest doses or some interesting, motivating, funny, name it, stuff to share. The answer was still ‘no’ no one wants a tail-less author. He asked ‘isn’t the content sufficient to sell the book?’ The answer remains ‘no’, no tail no sale!
The irony is that human beings do not pop out with tails, however to navigate life we are expected to have a sweeping tail behind us to have and enjoy any modicum of recognition. By now some are wondering what this ‘tail’ is. The tail is obviously figurative not an actual physical tail. But tail refers to those attributes by which we seek or people accord us worth. We tend to forget that a human being is worthy in and of him or herself just by virture of being born a human being.
In the case of the receptionist above, she asked, ‘where are you from?’ a very different question from ‘where are you originally from?’ The purpose of my visit did not require a disclosure of that information but not withstanding I was ‘worthless’ to her without providing it. She already knew I was there as a consultant and my contact was expecting me anyway. My presence and person was not sufficient. I was actually unsure what to tell her. I was running my own business, the Chief Executive, Director, Proprietor, whatever of my company. A company I am sure she had never heard of. I was thinking, so how do I answer, where am I from? Do I tell her the name of my Company, what train station I came from, what city my company is based, where I lived, what country my ancestors are from, or do I just say I am from my mothers womb, a long line of dynamic people or maybe even from the Lord God Almighty. The question is ‘why is it important? Some might argue she needed to know in order to relay the information, ‘no’ she did not!
In the case of my writer friend, he was told that unless he has a ‘profile’ nobody will buy or read his book. So he needed to build himself a profile. How long will it tak to do this? But the point is his mouth is hot now, he had the message for the moment and no one wil listen even though what he had to say is profitable for the immediate season. The problem being he had no tail.
Some humans have truly mastered the skills of whipping their tail, the long tail I must add. Rather than just be, they are the child of so and so, married to so and so. All their lives they name drop and the sense of relevance us tightly connected to the people they know and hob nob with. Some tails are not about people per se, but where we are from, what part of the country we are from, where we lived, where we schooled, what firms we work for, what gym we go to, what supermarket we shop at, where we buy our clothes etc all these things are ‘tails’ and in my opinion unecesaary to determine worth, we are intentionally created tail-less. Whilst most if not all of these things are good and beneficial and not to be mocked or derided, they are not and should not determine out worth, our worth is deeply embedded in our being, just being alive, a human being, a tail-less one, that is all it’s about, everything else is accessory.
Be! Just be, it’s enough!
Beautiful Ivory 