The war in the snail's horn

The king of Wei made a treaty with the king of Qi, and then the king of Qi broke it. Wei was furious and planned a war of revenge.

A wandering scholar named Dai Jinren heard about it and said: your majesty, do you know about the snail?

On the left horn of a snail there's a kingdom called Chu, and on the right, one called Yue. They've been fighting over territory for years. Every battle leaves tens of thousands dead. They chase each other across the horn and come back after fifteen days.

The king said: that's a fantasy.

The scholar said: allow me to make it real. Look at the four directions and the vastness of space. Is there any place you can actually reach and call yours?

The king said: nothing.

The scholar said: inside that nothing, there's Wei, and inside Wei there's Liang, and inside Liang there's your majesty. Is there a difference between you and the snail's horn?

The king said: no difference.

This isn't a story about how nothing matters. It's a story about proportion. The insult was real. Its size depended entirely on the aperture you viewed it through.

Before you spend three months on a grievance, check the horn. Most of the things that kept me awake were fought over territory the width of a hair.

MOJOWAY asks the sizing question honestly, on the record, once a week. Self-awareness is often just calmer arithmetic about what you're actually fighting.