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Why you should care less in 2022
Aesop lived around 620 BCE, in the Greek city of Mesembria. Whilst there are many questions surrounding his life, death, and existence — three admittedly somewhat important details about a person — he is remembered by history as a storyteller. The many short stories credited to his name are called ‘Aesop’s fables’ and include, amongst many others, the story of the Bull and the Gnat.
A small gnat buzzed through a meadow and arrived at the horn of a grazing bull. The gnat carefully placed himself on the tip of the bull’s horn to take a rest. After a few minutes the gnat, feeling revitalised, decided to fly away, but before leaving he turned to the bull and said “I’m sure you’ll be glad to see me go!”
To which the bull replied, “It’s all the same to me, I did not even realise you were there.”
At this point you might be wondering whether the profundity of Aesop’s tale has been lost in translation. Or conversely whether you have been duped into reading an account of something that, even by an insect’s standards, is pretty inconsequential.
Whilst both may be true, the moral of the story is not intended to be mysterious. It is simply that the bull cared less about the gnat than it chose to believe. Its presence on the tip of the bull’s horn paled in comparison to the creature’s other jobs like grazing and, I suppose…
