Saw the movie Charlie Wilson's War again. There is a great scene where Gust (CIA agent played by Phillip Seymore Hoffman) recounts a Zen parable designed to show how the quality of events and conditions are not immutable. Today's pain may be tomorrow's joy, today's great event is tomorrow's great challenge, etc.
This story is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It's being injected into the film as a Zen parable is thus appropriate:
This little boy, on his 14th birthday is given a horse. Everyone in the village says, 'How wonderful the boy got a horse,' but the Zen master says, 'We'll see.' Two years later the boy falls off the horse and breaks his leg; everyone in the village says, 'How terrible.' The Zen master says, 'We'll see.' Then, war breaks out and all the young men have to go out and fight except the boy can't b/c his leg's all messed up and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful!" Zen master says, 'We'll see.' [from Charlie Wilson's War]
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