Once there was an old Zen farmer whose car was a gas-guzzling rattletrap. One day it broke down.
“Such bad luck!” his neighbour said.

“Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” he replied.
His neighbour was a little confused, but soon, with the help of a government subsidy, the farmer was able to buy an electric car.

“How lucky you are!”
“Lucky or unlucky, who knows?” He shrugged.
Some months later, electricity became more scarce and more expensive as people resorted to heat pumps and other electric heating. The farmer struggled to make ends meet.
“Such bad luck!” his wife lamented.

The farmer just shrugged again. “Bad or good, who knows?”
His wife consoled herself by thinking about the good they were doing for the environment by forsaking fossil fuels and having a car whose electrical wiring had soy-based coverings rather than plastic.
“So that’s good!” she said.

“Good or bad, who knows?” came the farmer’s reply.
One day as they pulled off the highway and stopped at a traffic light, the car suddenly went dead.
The farmer’s neighbours thought it very unlucky, but his wife felt lucky it had not happened while they were speeding on the highway. The farmer said nothing.

They soon got a call from the serviceman. “Unluckily, mice have chewed many of the wires leading into the fuse box. They love the soy-based covering. Replacing the unit will cost thousands of dollars. But luckily, this is not an unusual problem, and your insurance policy should cover it.”
“How lucky!” the farmer’s wife commented.
“Who knows?” said the farmer.

The insurance adjuster insisted on replacing only the damaged wires rather than the whole unit. But the dealer refused this, saying repairing all 1000 wires was not possible, and he could not be responsible if an accident happened again. Caught between them, the farmer finally got their car back three months later, with the fuse box replaced, by paying the $1,500 the insurance company had refused to pay.
“What bad luck!” said his wife.

“Good or bad, who knows?”
Finally, a new broker found them a new policy with another insurance company, offering equivalent coverage at almost $1000 less per year. And soon after that, an ill-conceived war closed the Strait of Hormuz, and gas prices shot sky high.
“Amazing! We are so fortunate!” said his wife.
Well, by now you know the Zen farmer’s response…

Rachel writes from Newport.