A Dusty Muzzle
Seeing What Others Miss
A Curious Observation
I remember first watching Disney’s The Jungle Book as a kid.
Growing up in my day, we did not have the luxury of endless choices on streaming services. Very often, the movies we owned were the ones that we watched over and over.
As I grew up, this movie became a distant memory of something I enjoyed as a kid.
Fast forward to 2020, when I had my first child. Then came the time when The Jungle Book was what we watched. There were things this time through that I found entertaining that I never appreciated as a kid.
The part that really caught my attention was when Colonel Hathi was inspecting his patrol. He came to one elephant, inspected its trunk, and said,
“A dusty muzzle.”
Throughout the coming years, every time this part came up, I chuckled a little when I heard it.
Why was that?
When Hard Work Stopped Working
The past couple of months have been very different for me.
I have spent as far back as I can remember moving from one thing to the next, often failing to see what’s important in the moment, as my focus was on the future.
Parting ways with my employer, with whom I had been working for ten years, and being without a job for this period has led to a great deal of reflection.
I was trying to make sense of everything in my life, how one assumption I had made had led to the achievement of a job I had pursued for a great deal of time had proven itself false.
I am convinced that understanding this was what I needed to understand what my next role would be and how to be successful in that role.
As I continued to dig into this through question after question, before I knew it, I had not only understood the answer to this question but also made connections to things in my life that I had never stopped to notice or make sense of.
I had built much of my life around the concept that hard work equals success.
From the moment I had accepted this doctrine, I instantly saw a level of success that I had never truly believed was possible.
I remember thinking that there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish if I worked hard.
From that moment on, I began seeing above-average success in everything to which I applied it.
I wasn’t a master of any field, but I saw progress in everything I was doing until I reached this role I had been working towards for years.
It seemed everything was going well until it wasn’t.
Before I knew it, I was on a performance improvement plan with 60 days to improve, or I would be on my last and final written warning.
This had never happened to me in my life, and I couldn’t understand it.
There was only one solution:
I must work harder.
As I began applying this principle, 8 hours turned into 9 hours, 9 hours turned into 10, and before I knew it, I was working 12 hours a day.
The only problem was that no matter how many hours I worked, there was no improvement and many times a worse result.
I felt stressed and lost sleep, reaching the point where I wished the meeting’s outcome would be a separation.
Discovering the Pattern
During the time of reflection immediately following, I began asking more and more questions about everything in my life, and the picture increased in clarity with every answer.
What first seemed like a bunch of unrelated hobbies that never really went anywhere became data points on what I was really looking for.
I found connections with the shows I watched, the music I listened to, the books I read, the hobbies I pursued, and my strengths and weaknesses.
I understood why I did extremely well with some jobs and what made the most recent job so different.
This reflection led to making connections, and suddenly, I was seeing something that had been right in front of me my whole life that I could never see in those moments.
Not only could I make sense of the things I had missed, but I was also seeing more in real time.
What I stumbled across was a pattern that had been there for years.
My enjoyment of the television show Sherlock wasn’t just about solving crimes.
My fascination with Toyota’s working procedures was not just about manufacturing.
The questions I asked during Bible studies were not simply about discussion.
My enjoyment of writing and reflection led to the same conclusion.
In each case, seeing what others missed fascinated me.
Finding the meaning beneath the surface energized me.
I found enjoyment in making connections between things that at first appeared unrelated.
What had seemed to me as scattered interests were actually different expressions of the same underlying pursuit.
Why “A Dusty Muzzle”?
By this point, you are probably wondering what this has to do with elephants in The Jungle Book.
I wanted a way to practice what I was learning, and after researching, I decided I would start practicing through writing on Substack.
The only problem was that I didn’t have a name.
I didn’t want another corny name, The Art of this or that, but instantly thought of A Dusty Muzzle.
I put my work into practice and asked,
“How does this relate to what I am trying to do?”
Upon reflection, I started noticing the connection.
When Colonel Hathi calls for inspection, and all the elephants raise their trunks, he instantly finds his way to a specific elephant and examines the trunk.
Then comes the quote.
“A dusty muzzle! Remember, in battle, a trunk can save your life.”
Although everything had originally appeared okay on the surface, that wasn’t enough to satisfy this colonel.
He then examines further and finds, probably, what he had expected:
A dusty muzzle.
This colonel didn’t have to think twice about discipline in his troops.
His experience had led to finding these things easily.
What is ironic, though, is that he could see the dust on one elephant’s muzzle—a significant detail—but failed to notice immediately that his last inspection was not even an elephant, but a man cub.
As we see further into this scene, we come to understand that although he was good at noticing what was wrong as it related to his troops, he was also bad at noticing his own errors.
After the inspection, when they march, his wife reminds him that he left without his son.
Looking Closer
This is exactly what interests me about this scenario.
Examining more closely to find what’s not apparent on the surface level.
This is exactly what I did in my life, and I found value in things that I had never noticed before.
The idea of being fired from your job feels like a bad thing, whether you were right or wrong, for most people.
This is how I felt when it happened, although it was a great relief from the stress I was dealing with.
After examining the situation, I not only understood why it didn’t work out, but found great value in the situation.
Although this information was not apparent on the surface, a little digging revealed it.
I have spent my life fascinated by people who master their work or make significant achievements, but I could never understand why that fascinated me.
One thing I noticed during the pursuit of an answer was that they often could perceive things that others couldn’t.
Whether it was a minor detail in a crime scene, what their gifts are, how to use their gifts, or maybe something as simple as noticing a dusty muzzle.
What You’ll Find Here
I decided I would put this into practice in my life.
It is not only relevant to my work in my career but also to my role as a husband, a father, a Christian, and an intellectual.
This would lead to slowing down and finding value in the moment, noticing the details I had never taken the time to observe.
There is no specific genre to what I will look at on this platform, but simply what I find interesting, and the smaller details or the value that younger me would have missed.
I will look for the dusty muzzles.