[franksvalli]

It's comforting to me that this has been a challenge for many generations, the only difference is now the distractions are digital.

From Zhuangzi, Warring States period in China (born around 369 BC):

    But to wear out your brain trying to make things into one without realizing that they are all the same - this is called "three in the morning".  What do I mean by "three in the morning"?  When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, "You get three in the morning and four at night".  This made all the monkeys furious.  "Well, then", he said, "you get four in the morning and three at night".  The monkeys all were delighted.  There was no change in the reality behind the words, and yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger.  Let them, if they want to.  So the sage harmonizes with both right and wrong and rests in Heaven the Equalizer.  This is called walking two roads.

(note: Burton Watson translation)

I interpret this to mean first that what the monkeys care about is petty and trivial (like the petty distractions we all encounter daily), and more importantly at the end of the day there's no real change in the situation one way or another (the sum either way is seven acorns). The monkeys, caring about these trivial things, are happy they won the argument and got their way, even though it amounts to no significant difference at the end of the day.

So let it be.

[zarathustreal]

If I may add a contrary perspective here, I think this passage appears more clever than it actually is. For example, to draw a conclusion about oneself from this there would have to be a (false) implied equivalence between monkey reasoning and human reasoning, where a monkey may be simply ignorant of the sum and driven primarily by instinct towards a larger initial quantity, a human may have much more complex reasoning for choosing a larger up-front portion stemming from self-awareness (such as the knowledge that they may not be alive to receive the evening portion, or the knowledge that the trainer may be lying about a second handout). The fact is, they were not all the same. Time is one of the most valuable assets in this world, likewise for comfort.

If any conclusion can be drawn from this parable, it's that you really don't want to be a monkey in training.

[dbtc]

The monkeys are metaphors.

[simmerup]

The other side is that rulers in China likely encouraged this apathy to make people more pliable and controllable

[mantas]

Just like nowadays.

There's a famous columnist-wannabe-politician in my country. A part of one of his columns stuck with me. It was along the following lines:

> Just think what would happen if people stopped caring about saving for the latest iPhone. And got into philosophical debates instead. What a terrible world would that be.

Looking at context, it was 100% not sarcasm.

[Liquix]

Having trouble understanding the context in which this is not sarcasm. Would you mind linking the column if possible?

[kortilla]

Depends on how you interpret the “stop saving” part of the phrase. If it’s just for an iPhone sure, it’s definitely sarcasm. If it’s a comment about not saving money at all and just scraping by enough to sustain and argue philosophy, then there are a lot of people that would agree with the non-sarcastic take.

The phrase would have been better replacing “saving for” with “coveting” or something that better disambiguates a statement against materialism from one supporting selfish financial recklessness.

[mantas]

It was the later. I linked the article in a comment in adjacent comment if you're interested.

Good tip on saving for vs coveting.

[mantas]

The column is in Lithuanian. Hopefully deepl or google translate does good enough job.

The title translates to „The world, which doesn't need a newer iPhone, is destined for wars and genocide“

https://www.delfi.lt/news/ringas/lit/romas-sadauskas-kvietke...

[spacebacon]

Excellent