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Gherkin

Just throwing it out there:
Who took a bite out of my Apple?!?
Again!?!

@Jeroen said:

@Shoshin1 said:
One man's meat is another man's poison
I think the terms good and bad are relative ..Doing a good deed for one sentient being may be causing harm to another...
Do no harm or try to do the least harm possible...
Also having the the right 'intent' when performing an action...
I guess in a sense good can be seen as being 'skilful'...

There is a difference between feeling like a “good person” and doing “good deeds”. It is certainly culturally determined, and there is a difference between children’s culture and adult’s culture.

Doing no harm can also be done by doing as little as possible. The Taoist story of the farmer and his “perhaps” is also very relevant, good or beneficial things are often not so easy to discern.

For example in IJmuiden in the Netherlands, where my mother grew up, they built a large steel works, which was intended to help make the country independent in the manufacture of large steel objects. It did that and supplied work for a lot of people, but they are now discovering that the emissions from the works have negatively impacted the lifespans of people living in the area.

So in a way I can sympathise with the wise for being cautious in taking action.

There's the story cast about in spiritual and self help circles that illustrates this point as well.

A young boy came across a butterfly cocoon and brought it into his house. He watched, over the course of hours, as the butterfly struggled to break free from its confinement. It managed to create a small hole in the cocoon, but its body was too large to emerge. It tired and became still.
Wanting to help the butterfly, the boy snipped a slit in the cocoon with a pair of scissors. But the butterfly was small, weak, and its wings crumpled. The boy expected the insect to take flight, but instead it could only drag its undeveloped body along the ground. It was incapable of flying.

The boy, in his eagerness to help the butterfly, stunted its development. What he did not know was that the butterfly needed to go through the process of struggling against the cocoon to gain strength and fill its wings with blood. It was the struggle that made it stronger.

You may have heard a variation of this story before. I came across it in Frank Dupree’s book Metamorphosis. It’s a reminder of the fact that while it’s hard to watch those who we are close to struggle, often the best help we can provide is to do nothing. By intervening, and shouldering the burden ourselves, we rob those we care about of the opportunity to grow and get stronger.

As a parent, as a friend, or as a spouse, the instinct to help is hard to resist. We see our kids struggling at school, interacting with other children, or falling behind on the playing field, and we want to step in and save them from hardship. We want to offload their pain onto ourselves.

By doing so, however, we’re eliminating the circumstances that the people we love need for their own personal development. It’s instinctive, and understandable, to want to help. But often the best course of action is to wait and, like the butterfly, let the process unfold on its own terms and timeline.

As Robert Tew once wrote, “The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow. Don’t give up.”
Sometimes the best gift we can give is to stand on the sideline, shouting encouragement, but allowing the process of growth to run its course.

https://www.lifeandwhim.com/first-moments-blog/2018/the-struggle-makes-you-stronger

My friend told me this:
"To be able to think and speak, in more than one language, is a valuable gift.
To be able to keep your mouth shut in all of them?
Priceless!"

I came across Elves, Sprites, Pixies and Gnomes in this Wikipedia article on atmospheric phenomena…

My Lisa bought an iPad Air (2022) for her artwork and.... DAMN! What a machine... ❤️