Photo/Illutration An employee walks past rebooting arrival and departure screens at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on July 19 in Phoenix, Arizona. (AP Photo)

While traveling through the state of Chu, Duanmu Ci (520-456 B.C.), a disciple of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), came across an old farmer filling a water jar by himself to irrigate the field.

Seeing how labor-intensive and inefficient his effort was, Duanmu Ci told the old man, “There is a good machine for drawing water.”

“I know,” the farmer replied. “But once you start using what’s called ‘machinery,’ you begin to get ‘jixin.’”

Jixin implies ideas that corrupt the mind, like the desire to rely excessively on machinery, pursuing efficiency as the only worthwhile goal.

The above is a famous episode in “Zhuangzi” (The Complete Works of Zhuangzi).

Last week, the so-called CrowdStrike outage triggered a series of abnormal shutdowns of Windows-based computers around the world.

I was shocked to learn that about 8.5 million computers were affected and more than 5,000 flights had to be canceled. The scale of this system failure is beginning to be recognized globally as the most colossal in history.

My own computer screen also turned blue suddenly and stopped working. I was further stunned to learn that this had been caused by malfunction of software made by a company I hadn’t even heard of.

Many people are not conscious of the fact that the world is supported by innumerable networks and that those connections are what keep the world ticking.

All this is extremely convenient and we can no longer do without. But there is also a lurking danger that everything could come crashing down one day in the blink of an eye.

Could it be that we are too deeply into jixin today?

The above-mentioned episode from “Zhuangzi” goes on as follows: Having heard the old farmer’s words, Confucius noted, “He knows one thing, but doesn’t try to know something else.”

That was the ancient sage’s way of teaching us that while we must not rely excessively on machinery, we should not reject it out of hand either, so that we will live well in harmony with nature.

—The Asahi Shimbun, July 24

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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