The bird that feared the sound of the bow

The archer Geng Lei stood next to King Xuan of Wei and pointed at a goose in the sky. He said: I can bring that one down without an arrow.

The king said: how.

Geng Lei drew the bow and plucked the string. The goose fell.

The king said: how did you do that?

Geng Lei said: this bird has been wounded before. Hear the sound of a bowstring and it panics, flaps high, and tears the old wound open.

This story is used in Chinese as an idiom for somebody easily frightened by anything that resembles a past injury.

The part that's often missed: the bird was flying in a formation, where it should have been. It had no reason to expect danger. The bowstring wasn't an arrow. The wound had already healed.

Its body had learned something that was still true in a place that was no longer dangerous.

Most adults are carrying a few of these. A pitch that used to bring humiliation, so now you don't raise your hand. A raised voice, a certain tone, a specific date on the calendar. The reaction is already underway before you get the message.

The move isn't to talk yourself out of the fear. It's to notice the pattern, and to let one plucked string happen without falling.

MOJOWAY puts that reflex on paper, with its origin and its age. A 2017 wound is real, and it's also older than the current room. Distinguishing them is the whole of the work.