Jesusbudda’s Weblog

Have you ever heard the expression “more fun than you can shake a stick at”?

What a strange saying.

The question’s it raises are these:

1: Why would you feel the need to shake a stick at such fun things?

2: How much fun exactly would be required in order to produce a reaction that would involve you deciding to shake a stick at it?

3: If you are having “more fun that you could shake a stick at”, then is their an increasing scale of objects/implements you would then use instead: for instance if you went 120% beyond the limits of an acceptable level of “fun” would you then start shaking a sword?

4: What do you shake when you aren’t having fun?

5: And finally: have you ever seen anyone having so much fun that they spontaneously started shaking a stick? Me neither.
Seeing an old man shaking a walking stick when angry, yes.
But when happy – not a chance, matey.

Expressions like these are really, really odd.

Ya gotta wonder where they come from.

And why.

Which strangely leads me on to talking about the wise sayings of Confucius.

There are many tales of Confucius’ wisdom and magical adventures.

Here’s a popular one:

Confucius and his gang passed a cemetery where a woman was crying and sobbing like a little baby at a graveside. She told them she was crying because a tiger there had first killed her father in law, then her husband and finally her son.

Now that’s what I call bad luck!

The weeping woman was asked why she did not fuck off and stop hanging around in a place where a tiger was eventually gonna bite her head off too

The stupid cow answered that she stayed here because in this place there was no oppressive government.

What a strange thing to say! This woman was clearly a nutcase!!!!!

“Remember this, my children,” said wise Confucius, “oppressive government is fiercer and more feared than a tiger.”

And then he stoked his wispy beard and fucked off as quickly as he could because he didn’t want his bits chewed by a hungry tiger too! – Probably.

Now I don’t know about you, but I would rather take my chance with an oppressive government than being stuck with a man-eating tiger!

Confucius famously said: “Respect the gods, but have as little to do with them as possible.”

He was right, ya know!

But the fools were so in awe of his wise words that they turned him into a God anyways.

People, eh! They’ll never learn.

Its not good enough to just accept that the man said a few things that were witty, clever or was just some good sensible advice – 0h no, they had to go all the way and make him into some divine being!

You’re probably wondering how I got from talking about shaking sticks for fun, to then talking about Confucius and government oppression versus man-eating tigers?

Part of me wonders the same thing too.

Asian men with wizened faces and long white beards tend to come out with wise sayings a lot.

Why is that?

Can you imagine listening as intently to the “wisdom” of a man named Barry who enjoys eating burgers and mending car engines?

Or Dave, the man who bores everyone at the bus stop with his sermons on stamp collecting and habit for eating his own snot?

What about Tracy, the pregnant teenager who likes shoplifting dresses that don’t fit and eating directly from the Corn Flakes box?

Tracy say: “One must narrow ones eyes to see into the distance”.

Tracy say: “Even the strongest man cannot halt the flowing of the waves”.

Tracy say: “The bitter taste of defeat is far worse than a sucked lemon”.

Tracy say: “The nail that protrudes the most always gets hammered back in”.

Doesn’t have the same ring to it as compared to if our good friend Confucius had said it, does it ?!!

I will leave you with these final words of Tracy wisdom:

Tracy say: “The 3-legged man will never find comfortable underwear”.