The Master said: “He who will not worry about what is far off will soon find something much worse than worry close at hand.”

From Confucius’ The Analects, translated by Arthur Waley, New York, London, and Toronto: Everyman’s Library, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000 (first published in 1938), p. 185.

Addendum I (August 21, 2019)

Out of the blue, this morning I decided to send this quote to Putin, Trump, and Xi. Perhaps they will be shaken by Confucius’ wisdom, I thought. And the postcards are on their way already. With some luck, the mighty ones will receive it in a week or so. I can only hope that they will get to handle the postcards all by themselves. Indeed, that is my greatest wish on this day among days.

I pasted this piece on postcards of my own design that I used in the United Kingdom long time ago. It is a color reproduction of a postcard I sent two decades ago to Mark Kostabi, a New York artist, but which was returned to me because the address was wrong (“Royal Mail’s Revenge,” November 24, 2000). The postcard is sure to cause some confusion in international mail, for the two sides are pretty similar. Be that as it may, the mighty ones will eventually receive it.

How did I get the quote from Confucius, though? Although I have long decided to buy no more books, for I had have had enough of my many precursors, I bought The Analects for my beloved on her last birthday. And I could not but search through it for a few gems, three of which have ended up in my Residua so far. As it happens, the last one that I plucked from the ancient book bears today’s date (“The Good Man,” August 21, 2019). Returning to the mighty ones, as well as the mightiest among the mighty, they had better think through the blessed quote. Alas, hope is the last one to die!

Addendum II (August 23, 2019)

By the way, which piece of mine graced the postcard originally sent to Mark Kostabi? It was a joke on the one on high, the greatest artist of them all (“Adding, Subtracting,” August 25, 2000). And the most jealous one, as well. It all goes back to the so-called Second Commandment, which prohibits idolatry in all its forms (“The So-Called Second Commandment,” March 29, 2002; and “A Short Play from the Attic,” April 29, 2017). It is hard to imagine that the mighty ones will get the connection, oblique as it happens to be, but some among their humble servants may stumble upon it in my magnum opus. God plus Confucius may make them think twice about what is far off at this stage of the game gripping the world entire. Fingers crossed.

Addendum III (April 21, 2020)

Given the horrors of the novel coronavirus pandemic, I cannot but remember my warning to Xi, Putin, and Trump. In retrospect, it was timed pretty well, indeed. As of today, there are close to two-million and a half infected around the world, and nearly a hundred and seventy-thousand dead. And these numbers keep growing day by day. China was struck first, and Xi did very well in controlling the disease, but it spread across the globe rather quickly. By and large, it bypassed Russia, but Putin was also quick to control the outbreak. By now, China and Russia have only three deaths due to the pandemic per million inhabitants. But it took a while for Trump to recognize the coming danger, and America currently has one-hundred and twenty-five deaths per million inhabitants. Gosh, what a difference! Returning to my early warning, both Xi and Putin apparently read my postcards with due care whereas Trump failed to do so. Come to think of it, he must have been chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend when the postcard arrived to the White House. In short, he did not have any time for silly stuff, like The Analects.