A Wound With No Enemy
On the rage we mistake for self-defense
A snake, while crawling along the ground, was accidentally cut by a saw left lying in its path.
It instantly burned with rage, whipped around, and bit down hard on the saw’s teeth.
The teeth pierced its mouth and it began to bleed.
Under the searing pain, certain it had been gravely provoked, the snake completely erupted. It used all its strength to wrap itself tightly around the saw, trying to strangle this enemy to death.
The harder it squeezed, the deeper the teeth sank in. In the end, its body was severed clean through by the blade.
The saw never moved.
It was lying on the ground. It had no opinions about the snake. It hadn’t reached for it, hadn’t tracked it, hadn’t even known it was there. The cut happened because two surfaces touched.
The saw didn’t kill the snake. The snake’s response did.
The standard reading of the story is that the snake was stupid. Should have crawled away. Should have let it go. That reading is wrong, and it misses the part worth paying attention to.
The snake wasn’t stupid. It was responding to something almost no creature is built to handle. A wound with no real enemy.
Over 200,000 people now read Stoic Wisdoms. If you haven’t upgraded yet, you can unlock this full post and all 100+ premium posts including the Confidence series & Stoic Reflections.
Annual subscriptions are currently 25% off.
Pain alone doesn’t produce that kind of escalating fury. Even sharp pain. What the snake encountered was no ordinary injury. A wound nobody meant. No predator at the other end of it. No warning in the air before the strike. Nothing to be angry at in the ordinary sense.
Just two surfaces touching.
So the mind does what minds do when the truth is too thin to lean on.