“One finger cannot lift a pebble.”

Dan 00:00
It takes patience to allow other people to come in and you want to do it the easy way and just rely on yourself. How about this question? What are the barriers that we put up when we try to accomplish things in life and we can't rely, you know, and we struggle relying on other people. Why is that a barrier for us? How is it a barrier?

Steve 00:24
It drives you insane when you take on all the burdens and, you know, you don't know how to ask for help. I would blame myself on that one. I'm not really good at asking for help. And it is because a little bit of a pride thing, and that's not really good. Because if you need help, you should ask for it.

Is that true? If you need help, you should ask for it. How should you... How do you know when you should ask for help? Well, welcome, everybody.

Teach Different Podcast. I have Dan with me. We've been doing the last few podcasts together, and we're picking back up with our meaningful routine that's gonna be at least one a week. That's our goal. We don't wait for New Year's resolutions.

We have so much going on at Teach Different. When you're doing so much, sometimes it's hard to get to everything. But the podcast has been around since 2020, and here we are. This is the most fun or one of the most fun things about Teach Different, just having a conversation and, you know, sharing it with other listeners. And we, we love to have people weigh in.

So let's get going here. We got indigenous month coming up in October, and we had actually a Hopi Indian proverb a couple weeks ago, I believe. And we have another one tonight. Some of the best quotes out there of Native American people, and I'm just excited to read it. It's so short, and it's very, very thought provoking and metaphorical.

So beware.

Dan 02:12
In our online community, we have that monthly event where we're gonna pick a quote from a Native American and then use it as the basis of our community conversation. So that's gonna be really cool this month.

Steve 02:24
Yep. That's really what we're looking to do with teachers, parents, anybody ready to try these conversations. You have a community that you can join where you can have these conversations more and more. And there's so many resources in there for conversations. We love modeling it in the podcast, and that's what we're gonna do.

So our four moves are claim, counterclaim, Essential Question, and Storytelling. And we're gonna try to incorporate all those to model this for you right now. It used to be three steps. Now it's four moves because we added in the storytelling part and the importance of bringing out experiences when you're trying to understand these brilliant quotes from these famous thinkers and these leaders. And so here we go.

One finger cannot lift a pebble. One finger cannot lift a pebble. What does this mean?

Dan 03:29
What a metaphor here. One finger cannot lift a pebble. So I'm going to go with an interpretation of one person can't accomplish a task, to generalize this, that be... An individual can't be successful alone. There has to be more people with them, supporting them to get a task done.

I'll start there. That's the first thing in my in my head. The value of having other people working with you to accomplish some task.

Steve 04:17
K. To accomplish a task, in this case, lifting a pebble. Yeah. I guess you you personify it in a way. One finger cannot lift a pebble.

What was my first reaction? I've actually thought about the truth of that. I... Because I've never I... I've never

Dan 04:44
The literal truth?

Steve 04:45
Yeah. Like, was thinking of couldn't I pick up a pebble with one finger if I absolutely had to? I realized that it wouldn't... I mean, I could push it all the way to a to, like, a wall and then push it up the wall and then turn my finger underneath it so it's resting on my finger and then kinda hold it up. And you could argue I picked it up, but I guess you...

Not really. You just spent a lot of time doing something that would have taken, you know, two seconds. My thought about this was pebble is small, light, meaningless, or inconsequential. I don't... I I went immediately to that because he didn't say rock or boulder or lift up a chair.

It was like a pebble. So something that's... What I what I read into this immediately was something that is small, so small, you still can't pick it up without more than one. Okay?

Dan 06:08
Now pebble is round and smooth too. Right. Pebble is round and smooth. I think that's an important part of this as well. Okay.

Because if you imagine your finger trying to pick up something that's round and smooth, and it might be small, but I mean, some pebbles are... Then you just can't do it. It's the futility. There's something... The claim of this, and as I'm thinking about this, is the futility of thinking that you can accomplish something with one thing, one finger.

Steve 06:43
I was gonna go back to your alone. You can't accomplish something alone. I did personify it as well. So I went to the people. You you...

To a person. You can't accomplish something alone. You have to have more than one. Now you, of course, could argue that we have more than one hand. We have more than one finger.

You know? So, again, this is the metaphor part. What what do you do with this? It's got us talking and thinking about something.

Dan 07:22
So depending on your interpretation, if I'm just working off my interpretation that you can't do something alone, you need support, you need other people to help you. You know, what are some examples where that would be true in in my life, where I couldn't do something alone? The sports analogy is always a good one. Volleyball. Volleyball.

You can't do sports alone.

Steve 07:48
Than one... Right.

Dan 07:50
You know, a group project at school, you can't do it alone. It requires the efforts and energies of multiple people to do it. You can't lift the pebble. You can't finish the project. You can't conduct a good experiment alone by yourself without the help and support of other people.

Steve 08:19
Okay.

Dan 08:20
I mean, I would say most of the things that we do in life have a kind of interdependence where we have to rely on people, like... And we can't do things alone.

Steve 08:32
Yeah. So you... And you took, like, one finger to mean alone. You... That's what someone is when they're alone.

They're one. They're outside of the whole, the group. In this case, one finger is alone, you know, from the hand. Like, the hand has five fingers, and those are useful. You know, that was one of the main developments in our our development as humans.

What what do they call it? Detachable thumbs or or... The thumb is, like, a really important part of our development. The men... If you don't have a thumb, it's hard to...

You know, you could pick up a pebble, but the thumb makes it just possible to do so much.

Dan 09:20
Yeah. You need help. You need the help of multiple things, in this case, fingers to pick something up.

Steve 09:27
Okay. To do work, you need to think of it as multiple things acting on something. Yes. You need to be resourceful. It...

You can't think of it as something that you can do with just one thing.

Dan 09:44
Let's make this more practical for for people, though. Like, what would be examples where that is true, where that's the case? Someone who's graduating from high school, let's say, and they're they're getting a job, they need the help of maybe multiple people in order to help them be successful getting a job. They have to rely on friends. They have to rely on family.

They have to be courageous themselves. It's not one thing. It's not... They're not doing it alone. There has to be a multi force effort towards something.

I'm trying to just bring an example that would

Steve 10:23
be Yeah. I mean, we come out of the womb. Like, you need people immediately Mhmm. For your survival. If there were 20 people in a room right now having a conversation, I'll bet you we would have 20 different reads on this.

Dan 10:41
Oh, yeah.

Steve 10:42
You know? And I like that the smooth the smoothness of the pebble. I I do like that and what that might mean. Because you can pick up a leaf because it's not round and smooth. You can kind of get under it, and you can pick it up.

So there are certain things that you can lift with one finger, but not a pebble. So maybe an essential question might be, what are some things you can do alone that you don't need anyone else for? What things should you do alone when you shouldn't be relying on others? Because if you rely on others, you're not going to get the value out of the task, out of the activity. You know, I...

I'm flirting a little bit with the counterclaim here.

Dan 11:40
Yeah. Yeah. We kind of... We... It's interesting.

We did the Essential Question, which really feeds into the counterclaim, which I think is that doing things alone sometimes is more doable, more possible, more realistic.

Steve 12:02
Well, an example. I mean, sports analogies are so great because some sports are conducive to individual greatness and taking over games. You know, basketball, Michael Jordan taking over a game. But e... Even in games that he took over, he did...

He wasn't the only person out there. You know, there was someone in his ear and, you know, maybe at a certain point, it needed to be him. But I... I'd say sports is the the easiest analogy to this. When should you do something and not be thinking of the rest of the world and other people?

You know, what kinds of things can you pick up with one finger? Where if you tried to bring in, like, your other hand or your entire hand, it wouldn't help. You know? When is when is using one finger exactly what you should do?

Dan 13:08
Right. And, again, that we're speaking in metaphors here.

Steve 13:11
Well, I'm drifting.

Dan 13:13
You're you're... No. I know. You're you're being very, like, tangible with actual fingers. And I think that this, at least I'm interpreting this as much more abstract and metaphorical, that it's doing things as an...

Doing things alone as an individual is a futile exercise in life. You you can't do it. You can't lift the pebble with one finger. You have to figure out a way to do it that involves other people. Again, the metaphor, other people.

Gosh, I just thought of it back to the claim. I thought an example where if you, let's say, have a drug problem or a gambling problem or anxiety or a mental health issue or whatever, the way to think about it is, you know, you can't lift a pebble with one finger. You have to figure out ways to get help and have multiple people help you through something. If you do... If you think of it as a singular project to be done alone, it's going to be a futile exercise.

So train your mind to think of interdependence and help. I don't know. This is how I would go with this. I would be so curious as to what kids would do with this metaphor.

Steve 14:38
I I do like that. I like the think inter... Interdependence. Like, build the habit of not thinking that you're doing it alone because it creates the wrong understanding of who you are and the value that you're providing and the things that you're doing if you're thinking you're the only one doing it. I thought another aspect to this, a pebble, and I alluded to this earlier, a pebble is small.

When you say one finger cannot lift a pebble, it really is telling us that you need more you need more No matter how small the task, you have to remember that, you know, you can't do it alone. You can't do it with just one thing. You have to think, you know, holistically and comprehensively about something.

Dan 15:44
And the counterclaim is some things you have to do alone.

Steve 15:48
Well, it seems like everything. Well, I mean, not not everything, but it seems like most things you do alone. And you also should wanna be efficient with what you're doing. You don't wanna... Think of the group project back at school.

Right? Everybody's getting a grade. Four people in the in the team. Three people don't wanna do anything. Two people don't wanna do anything, let's say.

One person will do everything, and one person's kind of in the middle. You know? What do you do with that situation? You do it alone. If you're worried about your grade and no one else is worried about their grade, they're gonna hurt you.

Sometimes it hurts you to be thinking always of inclusion and other people and not having an independent existence.

Dan 16:49
Right. It takes patience. It takes patience to allow other people to come in and help. You wanna do it the easy way and just rely on yourself. There's all kinds of spinoffs now as you dig deeper in this.

You can talk about trust for other people. You know, what are the how about this question? What are the barriers that we put up when we try to accomplish things in life and we can't rely, you know, and we struggle relying on other people? Why is that a barrier for us? How is it a barrier?

Steve 17:23
It drives you insane when you take on all the burdens and, you know, you don't know how to ask for help. I would blame myself on that one. I'm not really good at asking for help. And it is because a little bit of a pride thing, and that's not really good. Because if you need help, you should ask for it.

Is that true? If you need help, you should ask for it. How should you... How do you know when you should ask for help?

Dan 17:55
Yeah. A lot of people struggle asking for help. Some people, it's a pride thing. Other people, it's just habitual. They're just used to doing everything alone.

Some people, it's a trust issue. They don't trust other people's capacity to to do things. Interesting. So trust. Again, back to trust could come into this.

We got some essential questions in there, definitely.

Steve 18:19
Also, what this is saying, which would be a claim, is that we're not as strong as we think we are.

Dan 18:30
And we're not as capable. Maybe I... Maybe to to spin off strong.

Steve 18:34
Okay.

Dan 18:35
We're not as capable as we think we are. We're overconfident. How about that? What if overconfidence is kind of the theme here? Right.

Stop with the overconfidence. Have a little humility. Some things just aren't possible. You gotta accept it. Be humble.

Steve 18:54
I mean, another direction you could go is say, be smart. Use two fingers. Yeah. The the... These...

The Native Americans, it's almost like their quotes are... They're just deliberately ambiguous, but they speak to something. It's like they're communicating in code. Right.

Dan 19:21
And and you said deliberately ambiguous. One way to think about that is that life is ambiguous. These quotes really reflect the ambiguity of life. So they're very authentic in that way. They're they're not they're not saying, actually, there's a clear idea here, and we're just gonna be deliberately ambiguous about something.

It's literally a portrayal of the confusion and uncertainty of life, which is... What makes them just beautiful. Native American quotes are incredible.

Steve 19:56
They are beautiful. This one was a... I I I want more people with this. You know? I'd love to have more more people...

More perspectives on this. And that's Yeah. What's so nice about a conversation. We wouldn't... You know, you and I went back and forth, and we're brothers, you know, so we kinda think the same already.

And it was already layered. You know? Can you imagine just having people different ages, different demographics just talking about this in a safe environment? What would come out of this? I mean, I'd love to talk to a Native American about this.

Power in one finger cannot lift a pebble. I feel like this is an open ended podcast. I hope everyone can tolerate that for today. This is what we got. And

Dan 20:51
This is a good one to use if you want something to splinter in a lot of different directions. That's Yeah. How I would use this one.

Steve 21:00
And and sit with this one. Let silence reign in a conversation like this because you're gonna have people that will say this over and over again. One finger cannot lift a pebble. Okay. I get it.

You need two fingers to pick up a pebble. What's the point? Let silence go. You know? And, again, really quick.

A nice thing about the resources we have for these conversations is we have some storytelling prompts, we call them. In the, community, you can get some ideas for how to spur a conversation and get people really thinking about it even though they might not have started with thinking about it in the in the, you know, the the right way. So that's something to think about. I love Native American quotes. Thanks for being here for the Teach Different podcast.

We will be back definitely next week, if not before. Take care.

Dan 22:05
Alright. Take care, everybody.