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 story is meant to teach that you can never know whether something is good or bad fortune, as the consequences of any one event are unknown to you at the time. For instance, his son broke his leg but ended up dodging conscription. The farmer didn't agree that his son had misfortune, because he couldn't tell if that broken leg was going to lead to something. Eastern philosophy exists on the principle that life is far too unpredictable for us to be able to control the outcomes, and the only thing we can control is our emotional response to the problem or situation at hand. This differs significantly from western philosophy, which posits that you can control external events if you just focus on solving the problem at hand. For instance: Western: I can't get a girlfriend. I need to work harder at it. Eastern: I can't get a girlfriend. I need to make peace with that before I proceed. Neither belief is wrong, they just look at different aspects of the problem. The farmer makes peace with his circumstances because he knows he can't control the future, and so determining what kind of fortune he has right now is not worth his time or his energy.
So what you are saying is that this is a shitpost that has literally no meaningful message? Well, that really sucks. I was hoping I could get out of having to warn you
