For most of my life I've been fascinated by fortune cookies. I am always hoping for one to simply reveal the mysteries of the universe to me. I guess I'm lazy, I'd rather just stumble across the answer on a slip of paper at the end of a Chinese buffet than, say, lock myself away inventing physics like Newton. I guess we don't need a fortune cookie to tell us who will be more successful in the long run!
"We are made to persist. It's how we find out who we are."
The frustrating thing for me is how few fortunes these days seem like fortunes. Often they are aphorisms and not even good ones. I am not sure my expectations are even fair so I began to search the Internet for insight into my favorite oracle. Interestingly, I found this article at the New Yorker about a man who writes fortune cookies. And this website devoted to weird fortune cookies. I love it. Why didn't I think of this instead of merely taping my collection to the fridge in an effort to make some kind of sense of the "bigger picture?" I also learned that according to Wikipedia, Chinese fortunes can be in either category... prophecy or wisdom. I guess that explains it. Here's how they got started.
And if you don't want to be troubled by actually going out to eat in order to get a Chinese fortune. You can try the online option at Bad Cookie or Meiwah's Restaurant. (there are actually a LOT of different places with fortune cookie fun... I just liked these ones best)
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