If You Do What You've Always Done, You'll Get What You've Always Gotten ...

Here's another post on Alexander the Great, after the last one on his three last wishes, which was published here on April 8, 2010. 

I came across this story on the internet. the central message of the story is that when faced with a seemingly intractable problem, a very effective creative thinking strategy is to play the revolutionary, and challenge the rules.

In the winter of 333 B.C., the Macedonian general Alexander and his army arrived in the Asian city of Gordium to take up winter quarters. While there, Alexander heard about the legend surrounding the town’s famous knot, the “Gordian Knot.” A prophecy states that whoever is able to untie this strangely complicated knot will become the king of Asia.

The story intrigued Alexander, and he asked to be taken to the knot so that he could attempt to untie it. He studied it for a bit, but after some fruitless attempts to find the rope ends, he was stymied. “How can I unfasten this knot?” he asked himself. Then he got an idea: “I will make up my own knot-untying rules.” He pulled out his sword and sliced the knot in half. Asia was fated to him.

It is a different matter that a little while later, the conqueror of the world was vanquished by fever at Babylon. That is the irony - while greatness does rise from the soil, it also does does become soil one day. 

Call it going a full circle.