When I first joined the board 5 years ago, the following story was told (not sure who the original poster was, I tried to find it but had no luck) and it made a comparison to how some policies in the organization exist because that's the way it has always been and no one ever bothered to change. Anyway, it stuck with me and with the influx of newbies, I thought they might enjoy the parable.
The gorilla
Five gorillas lived in a zoo enclosure. Above one part of the enclosure, a keeper hung a banana on a string. The keeper put a set of stairs under the banana so the gorillas could climb the stairs and reach it. The keeper watched and waited. One of the gorillas went to the stairs and started to climb towards the banana. As soon as the gorilla touched the stairs, the keeper sprayed all of the gorillas with cold water. When another gorilla made an attempt to reach the banana, the same thing happened: all the gorillas were sprayed with cold water.
After a while when any of the gorillas saw the banana and tried to climb the stairs; the others would try to prevent it from getting the banana - so they too were not hit with the cold water. The keeper was later fired from his job and the cold water spray removed. The banana was also removed, but the stairs stayed.
Much later, one of the original gorillas was sent to another zoo. A new gorilla replaced the original gorilla in the enclosure. The new gorilla naturally went to climb the stairs. To his surprise, all of the other gorillas attacked him. After another attempt and the same attack, he understood that if he tried to climb the stairs, he would be assaulted by all of the others - but did not know why.
Over time the original five gorillas were replaced, one by one, with new gorillas. Each time the newcomer would go to the stairs... and would be attacked by the others. The original gorillas and each of the newcomers would all take part in this punishment with enthusiasm. The new gorillas had no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they were participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After the last of the original gorillas was replaced, all the gorillas which had been sprayed with cold water had gone. There were now five new gorillas in the enclosure. None of them ever approach the stairs - and none of them (or their new keeper) knew why.
The gorilla
by TweetieBird 2 Replies latest jw friends
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TweetieBird
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KW13
nice little story, thanks for sharing.
kinda sad.
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DannyBloem
Hi tweetybird:
Guess, it was posted more then once.
I posted this also about a half year ago.
You can see the comments made on this story, since I compared it too this religion.Danny