Fish on the Wall
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I love Asian proverbs for their elegance, depth, and symbolism.
In China, they say, “The fish painted on the wall has only one eye.”
This is exactly what Western society often suffers from. Science has achieved astonishing results so quickly that people have started to deify it, as Nietzsche proclaimed, “God is dead!”
What’s the result? By destroying its metaphysical foundation, humanity finds itself in an existential vacuum. Life has lost its meaning. No hedonism or consumerism can replace it.
It’s like the asymmetry of our brain. Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist writes that the left hemisphere focuses on details, while the right focuses on the whole. If you get too absorbed in analysis, you can easily miss or kill Life.
Any word, concept, or scheme is just a “finger pointing at the sky,” indicating a phenomenon. “All models are wrong, but some are useful,” said the British statistician George Box.
We constantly draw fish on walls — in business, social media, conversations, or in our minds. Such representations have their benefits. But sometimes they lead us into a dead end. What to do?
Remember the whole — the larger context and the hidden meaning of the “impasse”.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
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