Huh.

[psychick]

A friend of mine posted this, and I thought it was excellently expressed, so I am borrowing the entire thing, and presenting it to you all.

People always say it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees; probably because those people never had the choice to make. Me, I've always been of the mindset that it's better to live than not, and this is why.

Once upon a time there was a philosopher about to be beheaded by the King for crimes against the kingdom. Right before the axe was about to fall, the philosopher said to the king, "if you spare my life and give me a year, I will teach your horse to fly". The king ponders for a moment and asks, "How can you teach my horse to fly? Everyone knows horses can’t fly". The man says, "your highness, what do you have to lose? At the end of the year you can either kill me or you will have a flying horse." The king, although skeptical, accepts.

Later a friend of the man asks, "Why on earth did you make a crazy promise like that. You know you can’t teach the horse to fly". The man responds, "Well, a lot of things can happen in a year. There might be a revolution. The king could die in his sleep. The horse could die. I could die... and who knows, I might just teach the damned horse to fly!"

Now if the philosopher had decided it was better to live on his feet than die on his knees, he'd've at the very least wasted a year he could've lived in. At most, he might've wasted a day trying to teach the horse to fly followed by the king choking on an egg roll.

What's more clever?

Comments

[steelvictory.livejournal.com]

Book rec: Poison Study by Maria Snyder. Fantasy with some romance thrown in (it's a Luna title). The main character reminds me of the philosopher.

[subjektivity.livejournal.com]

The problem with that philosophy is that it can rapidly devolve into live at all costs. Where just the act of staying alive supercedes anything else and we all become people who are living with nothing to live for. If you betray all your ideals and beliefs simply to stay alive what kind of life have you managed to weasel your way into. Notions of honor and good can easily sucumb to the blind instinct to survive and all meaning of what it actually means to live can be lost.

[foxxchik79.livejournal.com]

I thought that was great!!!!

got a little carried away......

[nenafay.livejournal.com]

I am of the oppinion that all horses are born withthe knowledge of flight to begin with, they're just too smart to let us know about it. Also, if a monarch is as outrageously tyrannical as the one in the story, it seems to me he's gonna take one quizzical look at the philosopher, say 'yeah right, buddy' and kerwhack! Off with his head! Any despot probably knows the depths to which a person will stoop, because he's been there and done it all, dirty deed after dirty deed. Placing myself in the Philosopher's shoes, I would spend my brain's last few moments thinking 'wow, that was degrading'and plummet into the possibility of otherness full of joy that I might know something beyond whatever the hell it was that made me decide to make such a promise. A flying horse?! Outrageous!
*Blubbly screen a la flashback(just to let you know we're in transition)*
Our dear philosopher is born anew as a horse... all knobbley kneed and stumbly... and learns two things:
That it really is better to stand up straight, because that's how we get nourished,
and that horses do know how to fly!

Have a very glorious Christmas!!!
*nena*

[vickska241.livejournal.com]

I liked that, thanks for posting it!