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That one starts with a glaring hallucination "he didn't understand, nobody understood, not then or now...". But the second part is IMO better than the Ecclasias
by armchairhacker 10d ago
That one starts with a glaring hallucination "he didn't understand, nobody understood, not then or now...". But the second part is IMO better than the Ecclasiast, which has outdated phrasing ("nor yet riches to men of understanding").
> When I look under the sun, it's not the swift who win races, nor the strong who win battles, nor the wise who earn bread, nor the smart who gain riches, nor the skilled who gain favor. Ultimately, it's the lucky; every contest has a degree of unpredictability and chance.
- masswerk 10d agoThe construction of meaning is totally distorted, though. In the original, the first part is entirely motivated by the conclusion, and puts emphasis to this by a crescendo of counterintuitive observations. This is what made this memorable phrasing. In the version suggested here, there's just an incompetence attributed to the original author, underlined by repetitive phrasing, so that the supposed speaker may claim all the glory by uttering an observation, which is in and by itself rather banal. You wont think about this twice. Thus, the entire construct ends in a whimper (so it may fit the template) and there isn't really any reason to put it that way, or to say this, in the first place. Its perceived purpose may be rather to occupy space and time (at the cost of the recipient.)