Records of the Grand Historian
I find myself in much perplexity
Write down what you could not work out
Records of the Grand Historian, Biography of Bo Yi
He admits in the first of the biographies that he cannot work it out. Why those words outrank any conclusion.
What actually happened?
In the Biography of Bo Yi he lays out a problem he cannot solve. The saying goes that Heaven's way has no favourites and always sides with the good man. Yet Bo Yi and Shu Qi, who kept themselves clean, starved to death; Yan Hui, who loved learning, died young; Robber Zhi killed innocent men daily, gathered thousands and ranged over the empire, and died of old age. So he writes: I find myself in much perplexity. Is this so-called Way of Heaven right, or is it wrong? He supplies no answer.
Admitting there is no answer beats supplying a false one
Forcing an unexplained thing into an existing explanation is the cheapest move available and the most damaging, because everyone after you will assume the matter is settled and stop asking. Writing down that you do not understand hands the question on intact.
A post-mortem concluding that the main cause was poor execution does far more harm than one saying the cause is not yet understood. The first closes the file; the second leaves a door.
A perplexity has to be specific enough to be checked
His is not abstract doubt. It is three concrete cases held against each other: Bo Yi, Yan Hui, Robber Zhi. Being specific is what lets later people carry the question forward. A vague sense that life is unfair is not a question, only a sigh.
Why do users not renew is a sigh. These three churned accounts behaved in their final month exactly like the ones who stayed is something you can chase.
He put it first
Seventy biographies, and the one with no answer opens the sequence. The placement is itself a statement: what follows deals with a world where even basic cause and effect is uncertain. Declare what you do not know first and the rest can be trusted.
An analysis that opens with which data are missing and which conclusions are guesses is the one whose judgements people dare to act on.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: a review or an analysis contains a stretch you have not actually worked out.
Ask first: am I about to give it a presentable explanation, or mark it and leave it for whoever comes next?
Where it goes wrong: closing the inquiry with an all-purpose cause, or writing the perplexity as a sigh instead of as a comparison somebody could check.
Lines to keep
Robber Zhi killed the innocent daily and died of old age.
Same situation, other people are asking
I've been saying it for years and nobody listens.All these years of not making it — did I write any of it down?I planted it years ago and nothing has come up.I've been at this for years and it has never worked.It still hasn't worked · all 19 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.