The Enemy Within and The Stupid Man

This is a personal rant. And a strange one.
I suggest those who eat cili padi should drink lots of water before continuing to read Desi's rant...
'cos the cili may taste a lot hotter than Thai cuisine.
And if you agree this story is indeed "strange", methinks you are also a "queer" wan.

It that comparision does not get the message through, don't worry -- you won't feel the heat. The cili is NOT meant for your palate. And the weird one is still in the steppes.

In any organisation, the most difficult challenge is to spot the enemy within.
Once such an enemy exists, it is the most dangerous element around and must be gotten rid off.
As any army commander would tell it, or you would have seen it in the movies, this enemy within if not checked, would destroy the whole army.
You don't need the enemy from outside to lose the battle.
The enemy within will lose thee thy battles, and the war too.

You find a similar challenge or situation in the corporate world.
Trade secrets could be leaked, or sold for the highest price.
A political party too harbours such enemies, and they are a cancer to the body.

I have met such enemies from within.

I am especially scared of those who mouth pious words, quoting from the Most Holy Book -- accurately too, so there is no doubt such quoters come prepared.
I had experienced at close hand one who would preach sanctimonious stuff from the pulpit on Sundays and he stabs his/her collaegues every other weekday. On those weekdays he's not stabbing his mates at the workplace, or in the plaground, he's in the kitchen sharppening the knife. Or memorising those quotations.

I have finished my rant.

To make amends, I will share a fairie tael worth its weight in gold.

A Chinoserie tribesman saw a wilde horse in the northern steppes, shivering in the winter cold.
He took pity on the animal and seeing that its eyes were running, he popped the horse's head into his little tent to give it some warmth.

As the night advanced, the winter cold rose in intensity, and the horse felt his body freezing outside the tent. So it advanced its front legs into the tent, pusing the owner to the edge, and he had his feet pushed out of the tent.

As the night grew colder, the horse grew bolder.
More of the horse's body entered the tent, and more of the tribesman's body was pushed into the wintry cold outside.

As the morning dawned, other Chinoserie tribesmen chanced on the scene of a tent now wrapped around the horse, looking quite motionless and dead, and beside it was one tribesman shivering like there was no tomorrow.

"Why do you allow the horse to bully you my friend?" they asked the stupid man.

"Oh, my father taught me to love horses as they are a man's best friend in the steppes," the stupid man replied.

The tribesmen laughed and laughed, then turned their whips on the stupid man.

"Why do you flog me, I am your kind?" the stupid man protested.

"Oh, our fathers taught us not to flog a dead horse. It's alright to whip a live man into shape," they told the almost dead tribesman.

"Neigh, neigh!" the horse laughed.

Then the other tribesmen turned to flog the horse. Their fathers taught them that they could flog a live horse, and also a stupid man.

PS: The moral of the story is: KNOW THY ENEMY, WHETHER LIVING OR DEAD.

If the moral is wrong, you tell Desi, as I am no moralist.