Bewildered Seaweed

Solution: An act, plan or other means, used or proposed, to solve a problem.

Here's an old Chinese proverb about heaven and hell . . .   Maybe it's Japanese.  It could be pretty new, too.  I saw it referenced on The Simpson's so it's probably total bullshit.

A big group of friends and family are seated around a dinner table heaped with steaming, delicious food.  Everyone's hungry so they grab their chopsticks and start to dig in, only to find that the chopsticks are six feet long and they can't get the food anywhere near their mouths.  They're in hell.

Each friend picks up a piece of food and aims it at the mouth of someone across the table who is conveniently six feet away.  Plenty of accessible food for everyone and the party's on.  They're in heaven.

Same place, same table, same circumstances, different outcome.  So am I looking for the solution today or am I looking for the problem?  I'm joking, of course - I'm looking for the problem.  You can do whatever you want.

I confess that initially, when confronting the problem, I thought: Why don't they just pick up the food with their hands?  Or break the chopsticks so they're shorter.  Or get some fucking flatware, for chrissake.  Who came up with the idea of eating food with two flimsy sticks?  The German in me is always looking for a solution to a problem.

True fact: when the first Europeans came to Asia and ate with forks and knives the locals were astounded: "These idiots are barbarians - they're eating with their weapons!"  A knife was used to skewer an enemy, not your moo goo gai pan.

Sing me a song, you're a singer.
Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil.
The devil is never a maker, 
The less that you give you're a taker.
So it's on and on and on.
It's heaven and hell.
Thomas Carlyle - 18th Century British philosopher.

It's bad luck to kill a seabird.  They carry the souls of men and women who have been lost at sea.

The lesson?  Don't kill so many seabirds.