Thought 21APR2009

BIRD CAGE
Most creative people are not happy unless they are trying to solve a problem. They can't look at anything without wondering how it might be changed, improved, adapted, modified, or otherwise tinkered with. Charles F Kettering, the inventor who contributed so much to the auto industry, was that kind of a man. He compared this kind of creative thinking with hanging bird cages in the mind. Kettering once bet a friend that if he were given a bird cage and hung it up in his house, that the friend would, sooner or later, have to buy a bird. The friend took the bet.
"I got him an attractive bird cage made in Switzerland," said Kettering, "and my friend hung it near his dining room table. Of course, you know what happened. People would come in and say, "Joe, when did your bird die?" "I never had a bird," Joe would say, "Well, what have you got a bird cage for?" people would ask. Finally, my friend Joe said it was simpler to buy a bird than to keep explaining why he had an empty bird cage. "If you hang bird cages in your mind," said Kettering, "eventually you get something to put into them".
Extracted from Bits & Pieces, The Economics Press, Inc., Fairfield, New Jersey, USA. From the Library of Puan Hajah Zaihani Abdul Hamid
If the rich could hire the poor to die for them, the poor would make a very nice living - Jewish Proverb