By Austin Chukwudi
There is an old Chinese proverb: “You can’t explain the ocean to a frog that lives in a well.”
The proverb is not an insult. It is a reminder.
The frog in the well believes the patch of sky above it is the entire universe. It has never felt tide, never drowned, never seen a horizon swallow the sun. So when you describe waves that are taller than houses, storms that go on for days, and water so wide you cannot see the other side, the frog will laugh. To him, you are exaggerating. To you, he is simply… limited by where he sits.
The truth is that we all have wells. For some, it is a job where nothing changes for 20 years. For others, it is a village, a religion, an X bubble, or a single story they were told as children. The walls are comfortable. The water is familiar. There is no need to jump.
But the problem starts when the frog assumes that because it cannot see the ocean, the ocean does not exist.
That is how we get arguments online between someone who has built three businesses and someone who has never sold anything.
That is how someone who has never left the shores of his country tells a returnee that “abroad is not all that.”
That is how people dismiss grief, mental health, or faith they have never experienced.
The hardest part is not that the frog doesn’t believe you. It is that you keep trying to explain.
You bring videos. You bring data. You bring your scars.
You say, “The ocean is cold. It will pull you under. It will also carry you farther than you imagined.”
And the frog croaks back: “My well is 3 feet wide. That is big enough.”
At some point, you realize: explanation is not the same as experience.
You cannot download wisdom. You cannot email perspective. Some lessons only arrive after you’ve been soaked, tossed, and spat out by a wave.
The proverb is not telling us to abandon the frog. It is telling us two things:
Be humble about your own well. The ocean you know is not the only ocean. The tech guru in a city has a well. The professor in a university has a well. The farmer in a village has a well. We are all frogs to someone.
Stop wasting energy forcing belief. You can invite. You can show. You can leave the well uncovered. But you cannot drag another creature out and expect them to swim.
Some frogs will stay until rain falls and overflows the well. Some will never leave. And that is alright.
Everywhere is full of frogs in wells. Urban vs rural. Old vs young. North vs South. Diaspora vs home.
We argue because we are describing different bodies of water and calling it “the truth.”
Maybe the point is not to win the argument. Maybe the point is to keep the path to the edge of the well open. So that when a frog is tired of the same 3 feet of sky, he knows there is a way out. And when he gets out, he does not mock the frogs still inside.
Because one day, the frog that mocked the ocean becomes the one trying to describe it to another frog.
And the cycle continues.
“You can’t explain the ocean to a frog that lives in a well. But you can live in a way that makes the frog curious about what’s beyond the walls.”