I bear many similarities with my cat.
We both share the same agility of limbs and nimbleness of thought.
Just like my cat, my occasional idleness does not necessarily mean that that my mind is in neutral. It is often when I seem to be half-asleep that the greatest thoughts pop in my mind.
This morning I was thinking about a common French saying:
“Le Malheur des uns fait le Bonheur des autres.”
(One’s misfortune begets somebody else’s good fortune.)
When away from my computer by the way, I often use my iPhone to text myself a passing thought. When I entered this phrase (with a stylus) in my iPhone, the over-solicitous spell-checker app corrected me and entered the following gibberish instead:
“Le Mahler des ins fair Le bother des sutures.”
Not exactly what I meant.
So, a word to the wise: don’t uncritically accept every correction suggested by the spelling app. If you neglect to pay attention, machines can easily lead you astray.
But let’s come back to our sheep.
For someone to win, somebody has to lose.
It is evident, everywhere you look.
If you want to pay less for gas, big oil companies, thousands of stockholders have to lose.
If you want to pay less at the grocery store, farmers have to lose.
If you need a kidney to live, somebody has to die.
“In Chinese philosophy, Yin and Yang describes how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary.”
When you seem to be losing ground, you might actually be gaining the upper hand.
The latest mindless carnage in Brussels will not strengthen the murderous cause of the terrorists but unite the civilized world against Muslims barbarians.
The word Yin roughly means “shady side” and Yang “sunny side”.
I believe that the Yang (the civilized world) will eventually obliterate the Yin (the cancerous tumor called ISIS).
But for many to live, many will have to die.
Alain