All the King s Horses and All the King s Men Couldnt Put Egg Man Together Again

When Humpty Dumpty jumps off the wall

At that place are ii main ways to speak truth, ane is through stories; the other is through studies. But because people don't care nearly what you lot know, until they know that you care, some truths are so important, so profound, that they can but be expressed in nursery rhymes. For instance the truth almost private, community and institutional chapters to address loneliness is found in the best known plant nursery rhyme in the English speaking earth. Information technology's four lines long; it tells us most of what we need to know about inclusion and intimates the rest:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the rex's horses and all the King'southward men

Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Humpty Dumpty was most certainly written every bit a riddle, as well as a nursery rhyme. One obvious answer to the riddle is: 'an egg', the symbol of fertility, creation and vulnerability. Within any eggshell in that location is all that is needed for a full and active life – pure potential just waiting to be hatched, nurtured and continued. For Humpty Dumpty that potential was never realised.

Yet, I believe there is a more oblique respond to the riddle – 'a customer of the King's services'.

Humpty Dumpty strikes me as an indecisive grapheme, sitting on the wall, (read as fence), equivocating near what to do next. I imagine 'role of him' (irony intended) knows that if he's always going to realise/release his potential he'south got to take the plunge; he can't merely sit down on the fence for e'er, but life is tough on the margins, the wall is loftier; he'south solitary…some might say he'southward hard to attain.

He as well apparently believes that the only style his life volition be made improve is if an adept, (I resisted the temptation to say 'eggspert' – oh, seems I didn't) comes into his life to gear up him. Hence the side of the wall where all the Rex's horses and all the Rex's men went most their business organization seemed to Humpty to exist the more bonny option were he to fall. That is the side of the wall that exacts the aforementioned gravitational pull that drew Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Panthera leo and the Can man along the yellow brick road towards the Wizard of Oz and the Emerald metropolis.

And so yous see, falling was non in fact Humpty'south main problem, it was the side of the wall he fell. He landed on the systems side, represented by 'all the King's horses and all the King'southward men', who duly did what they always do with broken eggs – a needs assay. They looked to see just how broken he was and concluded he was indeed very, very broken. They had technical terms to draw his specific type of brokenness and unlike Humpty they had been on many training courses to help them sympathise what the words meant. Some who were not so well trained muttered that he was just 'completely cracked'.

Later several consultations with each other they concluded that Humpty needed to exist put back together once again. After all, hadn't they dealt with a lot a fallen egg over the years and hadn't every needs analysis so far come to the aforementioned conclusion? "What a fallen, broken egg needs is the services of all the Rex'south horses and all the King's men." So they set to piece of work prodding and poking and the horses tried picking up pieces of beat with their hooves. Only Humpty was across 'assistance' and they failed to put him back together over again. Another good egg lost to world, despite all their heroic attempts to save him.

What every kid knows, yet, is that the King's men and the King'southward horses are often busy elsewhere protecting the King's state and piecing together an eggshell takes a lot of intendance and a long time. Fact is, all of the King's horses and all the King's men take seldom managed to put an egg completely back together all on their own.

From time to time the King worried about the failure of his men and his horses to mend broken eggs and asked his loftier officials to notice out why this was happening. Their inquiry found no fault with the performance of the King'south men and the King's horses, blaming instead – 'systems failure'.

They wrote long reports with lists of problems for the King to sit down upwards at night and read:

1. To put an egg back together again that egg must accept it has a problem; that information technology is broken and must be willing to receive 'professional person assistance', nigh are instinctively distrustful of such interventions and so resist them. Simply show from other kingdoms suggests after a few generations of helping such resistance will dissipate, and accordingly outcomes will improve;
2. Some eggs are apathetic and don't intendance about anyone, including themselves. They know they accept bug, cause problems, and are problems, just will not play their function in 'co-producing' a solution to their brokenness – they don't want to exist a part of a 'corking recovery'.
3. Many eggs get into deprival, refusing to accept the reality of the state of affairs, or the validity of the diagnosis that the King'south men have fabricated. Some even accept the temerity to propose that they are non fundamentally broken at all, but that all the Rex's horses and all the Rex's men, in an effort to exist helpful, had caused them to crevice fifty-fifty further. They are so delusional as to claim that if they had been left alone they'd be meliorate off.

Some of the reports included small sections on how the King's horses and Male monarch's men might help to prevent eggs falling and cracking in the first identify. But, to do and then they would need to spend time on the other side of the wall, which everyone knew was a very unlike identify birthday and presented them with many challenges.

Now permit us pretend that Humpty Dumpty had decided instead to see himself as a denizen and not as a customer. If so, equally he savage, he might have chosen to take his chances on the other side of the wall.

What practice yous think life is similar on the other side of the wall that Humpty had sat on for and so long?

I'd like to suggest that it's the opposite of the 'systems/institutional way', namely the 'community way'. Then what would this community way expect and feel similar?

Imagine at the bottom of the wall, on the opposite side, a comfortable nest fabricated up of contributions from a community of connected and caring people, organised to create the conditions for eggs to land, hatch and grow.

When the nest is in place the issue is no longer virtually an private egg or its brokenness, but virtually how to go on everyone connected and ready to play their function in making life good for everything and everybody. It's non near brokenness but the hatching of potential. On this side of the wall folks are not concerned with fixing broken eggs after they fall, or virtually what to label them when they do, but how eggs and all else, with all their strengths and fragility's, tin hatch, and what they can each do to make information technology happen more.

And what materials make the best community nests?

• the contributions of local residents
• the ability of local associations
• the resources of public, private and not-profit institutions
• the concrete and economic resources of local places
• the stories of our lives and of our evolving community as the place where citizens and eggs can prevail

But people living in communities can build these nests, tin lead others in the customs edifice. All the King's horses and all the Male monarch's men tin can assist by throwing over the wall at least some of the resources that they are currently using upward trying to put Humpty and his friends back together again. They tin actively cull to practice no harm and lead by stepping back, becoming facilitators rather than service providers; though commencement they could souvenir Humpty with some personal gold from the King'south coffers to resource him to make up one's mind and committee for himself his own good life. Just that would exist the stuff of nursery rhymes and fairytales… right??

Cormac Russell

petillocheirt.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/blog/when-humpty-dumpty-jumps-off-the-wall/

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