A story about rain

I’ll give you a little story.

I heard a joke when I was a kid, and I always remembered it, but I never understood the mystery behind it. It is said that there was a fool who walked in the rain with his head lowered, slowly, just walking in the rain. Passersby carrying all kinds of rain gear or things that serve as rain gear on their heads hurriedly ran past him, shouting as they ran: Hey, fool, run forward quickly, it's raining! The fool replied calmly: Isn't it raining in front too? Because of my stupid nature, I never understood whether the fool in the story was actually a fool.

Once, three successful people and I accidentally ended up on the same desert island, and I asked them about this joke: Do you think this fool is stupid? These three people had just dried their clothes and felt a little better. In addition, I had just given each of them a piece of deliciously roasted goat meat. Thanks to their patience, they gave me some advice-if Not on a desert island, I'm afraid you can't buy such an opinion with a piece of goat meat.

The first person is the chairman of a large enterprise. He said solemnly: As far as I can see, this fool is not a fool. Why don't you fool run away quickly? Because he is a lazy person, and lazy people always use stupidity as an excuse.

The second person is an excellent professional manager. He represents the perfect combination of social knowledge and wealth. He thought for a moment and said in a speculative tone: I think the fool probably has not learned. Let's go through the binary equation. Only illiterate people can't understand such a simple binary equation of time and rainfall. I think he is not a fool, but an illiterate.

I didn’t know the identity of the third person. Judging from the respectful way those two people treated him, he looked like an extraordinary person. After listening to the answers of the first two people, he shook his head slightly and said solemnly: The fool raised our common aspirations. It is also raining ahead, and we have nowhere to escape. The fool is not stupid, he is a prophet.

Of course I benefited a lot from the answers of these three people, but because I kept hunching over when talking to them, I couldn't help but feel that there was a kind of condescending arrogance in their answers, which seemed to be true. It was raining and I didn't bring any rain gear. As a result, I felt very unsatisfied, as if my questions had not been satisfactorily answered.

At this time, three more people also lived on this desert island. They were a grassroots people. When they saw a fire, they did not shy away from anything. They took off their clothes and came to bake without waiting. I invited and ate the rest of the goat meat. I waited until they settled in and then asked them the same question. The three people agreed that he was indeed a fool. One of them said: If he is not a fool, he should at least hold something as a rain gear on his head, right? Another person said: If he didn't run to the front quickly, how would he know if it was raining ahead? The third person said: It was raining, and he didn't want to go home quickly to collect his clothes, so he walked slowly in the rain.

The answers of these three people made our discussion lively. Some people even came to a conclusion: If there is a place to hide from the rain ahead, it is better to run faster to hide from the rain. But if there is a wilderness ahead, then it is better to run faster. You can only get wet if you run, so you might as well take it easy like a fool.

After telling jokes for a while, it really started to rain. People immediately became restless, stood up one after another, and ran away. I yelled at them from behind to stop: Hey, this is a desert island, there is no shelter from the rain, didn’t we agree to take it easy?

Someone said to me in desperation: Hey, it’s raining, we have to do something to show that we understand, right?

To this day, I still feel that that is the best answer I have ever received.