Marking the boat

A man of Chu was crossing the river in a boat when his sword fell into the water. He cut a notch in the side of the boat where it went over, and said: this is where my sword is.

The boat kept moving. Somebody asked what he was doing. He said: I've marked the spot. I'll go down here when we reach the bank.

Lüshi Chunqiu uses it against people who govern by copying an old system onto a changed country. Every schoolchild in China learns the story, and then about ninety percent of adults keep a version of that notch.

Your notch is usually a belief that was precisely correct about a situation you're no longer in.

Work hard and you'll be rewarded, in an economy that used to work that way. Be agreeable and people will like you, in a family where that was true. Make one excellent thing and it will sell itself, in a market that was less crowded.

The notch wasn't stupid when you cut it. That's what makes it hard to find. It was operational, it kept you safe, and it was correctly sized for the river you were in.

The practice is noticing when a belief has stopped being true, rather than the moment you got it.

MOJOWAY puts a date on things. A judgement from three years ago is a hypothesis, not a fact, and the file makes the age of your certainties visible.