For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Stephen Hawking, theoretical phsysicist, cosmologist, 1993 British Telecom Advertisement

This advertisment was sampled by Pink Floyd in their 1994 song, "Keep Talking". The helplessness of failed communication in the verse is juxtaposed with Hawking's message of the solution in the chorus. The hypocrisy of the human paradigm is emphasized: a teacher who cannot actually speak; a lonely individual amidst a choir.

TL;DR: If the rule you followed brought you to this then what good was the rule?