(“Long ago, on a hot summer night in Afghanistan, the King decided to leave the palace and go out into the city for some fresh air.” Howard Schwartz, Elijah’s Violin and Other Jewish Fairy Tales, “The Wooden Sword”)
Thousands of us, looking in, waiting for someone to look back. Laptops open over dinner, we show up at the productivity expert’s webinar. Maybe he can help us make peace with our inability to do almost anything. In the one building with internet in his village on the moors, the expert flicks on his PowerPoint. He says, “I change systems every couple of years.” GTD. Buddhism. New versions of Jungian theories. He is most famous for reminding us how soon we will die.
So friendly and cheerful—we want him as our dinner guest every day. In the old tale: the disguised king wanders his poorest district at night, watches through the window as the happy man and his wife eat their fruits and salads and drink their wine and strong drink, rejoicing. Every night, the king asks to come in. Not knowing who he is, they share what they have. Every day, he passes new laws. Now it’s illegal to mend shoes, carry water, cut wood. Each day, the man finds a new way to earn his dinner. Every night the king checks: can the man still rejoice?
If you change the rules every day, you, the game maker, are always the winner. When the king hires the woodcutters as palace guards and doesn’t pay them, the man sells his sword, makes his own. Prays to be spared having to behead a thief. Look, his sword is wood! A miracle! Now he’s a king’s advisor, he makes the systems.
At all times, the productivity advisor keeps in mind twelve insoluble problems, using his systems to keep notes. Maybe there is a loophole. The poor man’s wife, upstairs among the Queen’s ladies, learns which knife to use, how to judge embroidery and lace, which tiny betrayals to emulate. And God watches through the window, waiting for us to look outside.
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