Initial Preparation
A term well-known to people in the textile industry is pre-treatment. Pre-treatment is the process which coarse cloth is put through so that it can be worked into a fine, finished product. Without pre-treatment, cloth is not suitable for further processing and cannot ever therefore have any fineness of texture.
For instance, cloth has to be dyed. But before the dye can be added, the cloth has to be cleaned. This cleaning is the “pre-treatment” for dying. If the cloth is not properly cleaned in preparation for dying, the colour will bleed. Besides, colour does not stand out on cloth which has not been thoroughly cleaned in advance. It is estimated that about 70% of the rejected cloth which comes through the mills of textile factories, has been rendered faulty by the application of dye without adequate pre-treatment of the fabric.
Just as prior preparation is indispensable in the textile industry, so also is it essential in human affairs. We cannot expect our initiatives to reach a successful conclusion if we do not prepare the ground for them in advance. Any move made without sufficient preparation is doomed to failure, just as cloth which is dyed without having been pre-treated is doomed to join the reject pile.
Journalism, for example, cannot come into existence without industry. If one does not possess the know-how needed to handle sophisticated equipment, one will not be able to progress in the highly competitive world of journalism. It is not enough just to gather a team of reporters and put pen to paper; one must first have access to and a technical understanding of the machinery needed to convert reports into the columns of a newspaper.
The same is true in the political arena. If a party wishes to attract votes, it must first show itself to be united. How can a party which is itself in disarray expect others to join its ranks? The need for initial preparation makes itself felt in every walk of life—in private affairs as well as in public life. Those who seek to achieve high ideals, but do not wish to suffer the tedium of first doing extensive groundwork are building sandcastles which will never stand up to the test of time. Their ambitions are no more than flights of fantasy which will never get off the ground in this world of hard realities.
