At around two Millennium B.C Egyptians were working on a quarry to erect an obelisk in honour of their dead pharaoh, so they stood side by side in a very long line that stretches from the quarry to the construction site, standing on the opposite ends are the chief sculptor and the chief architect, at the construction site, the chief architect passed a message to the man standing beside him and asked him to pass it on to the other, and another and another till it reaches the chief sculptor.
He said, “tell the chief sculptor that we need a smooth sharp stone to put onto the obelisk’s head,” when the message reached the chief sculptor it said something like this , “the chief architect says you have a smooth sharp head, it looks like that of an obelisk”. On hearing this, the chief sculptor was upset; it nearly brought the entire work to a standstill “is the architect trying to start a conflict with me? He could be jealous of me because I am the best artisan around here, that’s why he insults me this way”, he wondered for a while then makes up his mind to speak to him personally, later after the day is over.
Later that evening they were together at the pharaoh’s dining table, the sculptor reminded the architect about his earlier statements based on what he heard from the other masons, to his surprise, the architect laughed out loudly “aha! Is that so? Is it what they told you? I too was wondering why you were taking too long to respond, I thought you were ignoring me. What a crazy day, next time I will stand on a rock and shout my requests directly to you so you would hear me properly, Sleep well” he said, then they parted ways.
When a simple piece of information passes through many hands, it undergoes so many changes, editing, modifications, that by the time it reaches the final reader it has evolved and been transformed into something totally different from the original.
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