Sunday Serial: “Maybe,” Hiking with Nietzsche, and Zippo Lighters

Here’s this week’s list of things to check out:

  1. Maybe: Via the Marginalian comes this Chinese proverb1. What if you lived such that nothing was experienced as an advantage or disadvantage?
  2. Hiking with Niezsche: I’m reading this now and highlighting like a madman so that I can review them in Readwise, but I figured I’d throw it in this week’s list. It’s both what I thought it would be and different; the author, John Kaag, is a professor of philosophy, so it’s not written from an enthusiast’s perspective, but it is a reflection on Nietzsche’s writing from a rather personal viewpoint.
  3. Zippo Lighters: As an inveterate charcoal griller, I have always had a variety of disposable lighters around. They are bound to disappoint at some inopportune moment. I got this Zippo a while back, a fond throwback to my smoking days (Camel Lights, natch), and as long as there are some spare flints and lighter fluid in the house, I can always count on it.
Zippo LIghter
Zippo Lighter

1

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.” The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The farmer steadfastly refrained from thinking of things in terms of gain or loss, advantage or disadvantage, because one never knows… In fact we never really know whether an event is fortune or misfortune, we only know our ever-changing reactions to ever-changing events.