Commentary by Walter Hesford | FāVS News
Every Friday in Moscow, we are fortunate to have Tom and Tracy, “The Fish Folks,” bring us a wide variety of fresh and frozen fish from the coast.
Along with a great choice of seafood, we are treated to a choice joke on a blackboard. I gather it’s Tracy who fishes up these fishy gems, often in the form of a riddle, such as: “What fish is the best poker player? Answer: The cod—it’s a real cod shark.” I loved this one because, being from Boston, I pronounce “card” sort of like “cod”—and also, being from Boston, I’m at home with the cod.
A few weeks ago, the riddling question was, “Which side of the fish has the most scales?” The given answer was “The Outside.” You may rightly think me clueless, but I didn’t get it.…I went away scratching my head.
Tossing around that night in bed, I finally understood—the outside, idiot, has scales, while the inside doesn’t. I didn’t initially get the joke because when I pondered the sides of fish, I thought only of left and right. This made me wonder about how often I’m locked into a two-sided way of thinking.
The Limits of Binary Thinking
Maybe I can blame our human body. With two feet, legs, arms, hands, eyes, and ears, thinking in twos comes naturally. We learn early how to tell our left hands and feet from our right ones.
Next we might learn right from wrong, good from bad etc. Thinking in oppositional pairs is culturally ingrained. Whether we choose life or death may depend on it. At least the political welfare of our country may depend on our choice of one party or another.
When I taught the argumentative essay, I would train students to first state their position, then a possible oppositional position. After acknowledging the merits of this other side, a typical argumentative essay went on to establish the superiority of the first side.
When I studied Chinese culture, however, I learned of the classic eight-legged essay scholars were supposed to be able to compose. Scholars were expected to meander among at least four different points. Those who only developed two sides to an argument were considered unsophisticated.
Expanding Perspectives
Many Native American cultures draw in wisdom from the four directions, North, East, South and West, as well from the earth below and the sky above, circling themselves respectfully with essential knowledge. It is also important in these cultures to consider the wisdom of ancestors and the welfare of descendants seven generations in the future in making decisions.
All these directions and perspectives would provide balance and enrich our decisions and lives. Yet it is still vital to be mindful of the other side of the “Outside” Fish Folk joke: the Inside. Jesus certainly thought so. He told his disciples that instead of worrying about the opposition between the clean and unclean (kosher or non-kosher) food that they might take into them from the outside, they should concern themselves with the cleanliness of what was inside them, specifically their hearts (see Mark 7: 17-20).
Out of an evil heart, he told them, comes all the evil things we see in the world that we tend to project onto others (see Mark 7: 21-23). Rather than look for others to blame and judge, we should look inside ourselves to see what needs cleaning.
Jesus as well as other religious teachers such as the Buddha taught that with insight and grace our hearts might develop compassion. Then scales might fall from our eyes and we would see the needs of all around us.
We can also look for insight from unexpected sources, like a fishy joke. So a thank you to Tracy and Tom, the Fish Folks.
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
Hey Walter, another wonderful off-normal look at the wisdom found in fish jokes! Well done. I hadn’t known about the 8-legged essay in Chinese culture. Will take a closer look for that. Oh, when those (fish) scales drop from our eyes, we might more easily see that inside like Jesus and so many wisdom people hope we might see.
Peace,
Paul
You are on a roll, Walter! Yet another insightful piece.
Agreed — yet another insightful and thought-provoking essay, Walter. I particularly appreciate the way you’ve blended apparently disparate themes into a coherent whole: our (perhaps biologically innate) tendency to think in binary terms, given the symmetrical binariness of our very bodies (two arms, two legs…); the way that an ostensibly silly fish joke actually helps us by problematizing that inclination toward binary thinking (there are more “sides” than just “left” and “right” — e.g., “inside” and “outside”); and the way Jesus emphasizes the moral importance of how what is “inside” us gets expressed on the “outside” — in contrast to concerns over what we take “in” from our external or “outside” environment.
Just as a curiosity, I’d note that last Sunday’s gospel reading from the common lectionary (Mark 7:1–23) skipped right over the juiciest part (vv.18–19). There, Jesus actually indulges in a bit of bathroom humor: “Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (I think there is merit in the conclusion of scholars who argue that this quip of Jesus, in response to his adversaries’ worries over the potentially defiling results of ingesting this or that food, is actually the original core saying of this whole passage.)
Again, bravo!
Thank you, Walter! Nice way to get us thinking outside our respective boxes.