Zhuangzi’s Butterfly

Zhuangzi’s Butterfly is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

It is worth keeping in your pocket not because it is always right, but because it is always available. A tool you carry beats a perfect tool you left at home.

Think of the grandfather who plants a mango tree he will never sit under. Ask him why, and he will look at you as if the question were the strange thing.

In the end, life asks only whether we were awake while it happened. If this page made you think of one specific person, do not send it to them. Apply it to yourself first; that is how these things work.