On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 08:27:16PM +0100, Hilmar Berger wrote: > My boss keeps telling a story of a man who met two guys > trying to cut a huge tree using a saw. Both were covered in > sweat and working furiously. The man watched them for some > time, than said "I guess if you would just stop for some > minutes and sharpen you saw blade, the work would be done > much faster". Answer of one of the two guys: "We can't stop, > we need to cut the tree and have to saw."
A classical Zen Koan. It doesn't tell you in the least who's right or wrong. Did the third guy bother finding out why the two others were working the way they did ? Perhaps there was good reason for it. Did he offer to fetch a third saw, sharpen that, then change saws with one of the guys, sharpen that one, and take turns with the third ? Did he offer to keep sawing with the one proposedly dull saw while one guy was resting and the other was sharpening his blade, then take turns with the other guy ? Do you notice how the third guy says "I guess ..." ? He ain't saying "I've been there before, let me get into the dirt of things and show you how this can be done faster going by my experience." No, all he was doing was wise-cracking and watch others do work. Of course, the answer of the two guys is ill-considered as well. Karsten -- GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346 _______________________________________________ Gnumed-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumed-devel
