The elephant in the room, and other stories

Q: How do we address the elephant in the room - without getting trampled?

A: We recognise that the elephant is larger and more powerful, and we act accordingly.

Let me start with a story.

I grew up in Africa, and returned to Africa as soon as I turned 18 and was able to make my own decisions about where I wanted to live. I no longer live there but Africa is in my blood, and my ancestors on my father’s side have been there since at least the early 1800s.

My father, whose childhood was spent in rural southern Africa, loved the land there, and he made sure that he introduced his children to that land - and especially the bushveld - as soon as we were able to cope with the climate. As a result I have a deep and enduring love for the savannah with its scrub, lala palms and grasses; for the otherworldly boulders of the koppies; for the riverine bushwillows and jackalberries; for the interminable mopane thickets; for the fever-tree avenues of the subtropics.

I try to go back to the bushveld as often as I can, which is unfortunately nowhere near as often as I’d like. Visits are few and far between; but what remains inevitable is that every visit will bring an encounter with a lone male elephant.

Lone male elephants are the mavericks of elephantland, usually ‘on a mission’ as we say in South Africa, walking and eating their way through the bushveld - destination unknown. Like us, some elephants are mild-mannered, some are a tad grumpy, and others are far less civil. Also like us, they prefer a good road to having to clear their own path. This means that there are frequent episodes of rounding a bend in your vehicle only to be met with the backside of an elephant heading in the same direction at about 4 miles an hour.

It’s at this point that some cars try to overtake. Rookie error. Even the most mild-tempered elephant will make it very clear, very quickly, that you’ve forgotten your manners. Those people who know better and hold back understand two things: 1) they’re in the bushveld; they have all the time in the world and there is nowhere that they need to get to that urgently, and 2) elephants have right of way - every time.

I once sat in a car with a friend in 40 degree Celsius heat for two hours, rolling along at 4 miles an hour, looking at the north-end of a south-bound elephant, because that elephant demanded it. He was on that road, and any attempt to pass him ended up in elephantine harrumphs! and the swishing of ears. He sauntered off the road two hours later, because he felt like it, and we continued on our journey. Both unscathed.

But I digress. What do I mean by this ridiculously extended metaphor anyway? Simply this:

Sometimes, there are forces out there - whether forces of nature, or collective forces, or forces of opinion - that are so powerful that to go head to head with them as an individual is to forget who we are, and what it is we are facing. There is a lot that is unconscious, and we all share in that unconsciousness. When we challenge what we feel needs to make way, we contend not only with that other, but with ourselves and our decisions too. This is not an admonition to take the easy route out and to give way. No. Like meeting an elephant, the easiest way is to try and pass it, and the elephant will prevail nearly every time.

The harder route is to hold to what feels right when all forces are weighed and measured. To be temperate, to be dictated by a more mature way of dealing with things.

In other words, to acknowledge the elephant in the room, in all its capacities and capabilities, and to draw from your equally able, but different, resources to see the elephant, call it an elephant, and then to act accordingly. This is the power the individual has in the face of collective forces that are disinterested in who we are or what we think. We remain our own person while we know the other. We remain unequivocally true to our direction while allowing the elephant his way.