Bit by Bit - Chapter 2, Part 17

Trey Smith

But to wear out your brain trying to make things into one without realizing that they are all the same - this is called "three in the morning." What do I mean by "three in the morning"? When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, "You get three in the morning and four at night." This made all the monkeys furious. "Well, then," he said, "you get four in the morning and three at night." The monkeys were all delighted. There was no change in the reality behind the words, and yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger. Let them, if they want to. So the sage harmonizes with both right and wrong and rests in Heaven the Equalizer. This is called walking two roads.
~ Burton Watson translation ~

In this vein, humans are no better than monkeys! We cling to our own depictions of the world and yet it doesn't change the world as it is. We squabble and fight to enforce our will upon others, but, at the end of the day, we each leave this world with exactly what we brought into it: nothing.

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