The Lengend of Pang Tong: Understanding Ourselves Through Literature

Well I sort of disappeared from Steem for a minute. No real reason, just was busy the last week and a half or so and haven't been in the post writing mood. I actually thought about the idea for this blog a week ago and sort of let it ripen, and very fortuitiously the universe seems to have led me back to in a not so subtle way which I'll get to at the end.

For those who aren't familar, Pang Tong was one of Liu Bei's chief strategists in the early part of the Three Kingdoms period of China. While he was a historical figure, much of what we know about him comes from the novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is considered to be the Chinese equivalent of Homer's The Odyessy, a great work of historical fiction that is one of the true early literary classics. Like a lot of westerners my first expereince of the story was through playing the Dynasty Warriors video games. In it you assume the role of various generals from the Three Kingdoms period in a campaign to unite China after the fall of the Han dynasty.

Pang Tong was a character I was immediately drawn to. He has a unique and interesting moveset that requires finesse and strategy to use properly. He uses a staff which is also my weapon of choice (although I learned long staff as opposed to the short staff he uses). He's also often protrayed as smart and sarcastic in most of his characterizaion, in constrast to Lui Bei's other main strategist Zhuge Liang, a reserved and fastidous man who Pang Tong is one of the few that can equal him intellectually. Overall he's the character I can most clearly see myself in, which says a lot in a story that has hundreds of officers representing the entire gamut of character archetypes.

After playing the games for a few years I learned about the novel that they are based on and the actual events behind it. When I first started studying Mandarin my goal was to one day be able to read the entire story in Chinese. Sadly I stopped studying the language after college and never really came close. Perhaps one day I'll have the space in my life to pick up my study again, but regardless the story remains one that is very important to me.

There is one chapter in it that really cements my relation to Pang Tong's character. In chapter 57, Pang Tong anonymously the role of a city magistrate in a small town in Liu Bei's kingdom after a falling out with Sun Quan. In the first 100 days in his post he does absolutely no work. Pang Tong, considering the tasks assigned to him to be beneath a man of his talents, spends the entire time drinking and partying intend of tending to his role. When news of this reaches Liu Bei, he is furious and sends one of his most trusted generals, Zhang Fei, to demand answers from this lazy adminstrator as to why he has let the town's affairs languish while he spends his days and nights drinking.

When Zhang Fei arrives, he finds Pang Tong hungover from another long night of drinking. Infuriated, he is ready to execute Pang Tong where he stands, however a minister who was accompianing him and knew of Pang Tong's reputation convinced him to hear him out.

"My brother took you for a decent person," said Zhang Fei, angrily, "and sent you here as magistrate. How dare you throw the affairs of the county into disorder?"

"Do you think I have done as you say, General?" said Pang Tong. "What affairs have I disordered?"

"You have been here over a hundred days and spent the whole time in dissipation. Is not that disorderly?"

"Where would be the difficulty in dealing with the business of a trifling county like this? I pray you, General, sit down for a while till I have settled the cases."

And with that Pang Tong spent the rest of the morning and afternoon completeing the entirety of the work that had piled up over the last 100 days. By mid-afternoon the entire backlog had been cleared flawlessly.

This done, the Magistrate threw aside his pen and turned to the inquisitors, saying, "Where is the disorder? When I can take on Cao Cao and Sun Quan as easily as I can read this paper, what attention from me is needed for the business of this paltry place?"

Zhang Fei was so impressed by this feat he immediately returned to Liu Bei to relay what he had seen and to recommend he immediately visit with Pang Tong to recruit him as a strategist. Liu Bei turns to discuss the matter with his cheif strategist Zhuge Liang, who knew of Pang Tong's ability from the battle of Chi Bi, had this to say with regard to Pang Tong's behavior, "When a person of transcendent abilities is sent to a paltry post, he always turns to wine out of simple ennui."

Well earlier this week I had my own Pang Tong moment. I have spent much of my time preoccupied with other matters at my job. I work in at an IT helpdesk and while I haven't quite spent the whole time drinking instead of doing work, I DID have about 3 months worth of helpdesk tickets sitting open in my queue in various stages of completion. After a few complaints about the status of my queue, I knocked out 200 items in a single day this week to return it to some state of order. I don't think the CEO is going to be knocking on my door anytime soon to give me a promotion out of that, but in the context of this story it does show why I am prone to let minor tasks languish until I feel they deserve my attention.

I've been fortunate enough to always be surrounded by very intelligent people. I went to one of the top high schools in NYC and I am engaged to a woman who is incredibly smart and talented. A lot of us though were known though for being lazy, troublemakers, underachivers, etc. The thing is though, if you asked us why we behaved like this most of us would tell you we're just kind of bored. Motivation is a funny thing. Challenge creates interest and engagment, which leads to creation and productivity, and often leads to more challenges. Boredom causes disinterst and laziness, which leads to disassociation. It's why I have a theory of personal interia. The more active you are the more you tend to remain in motion, while inactivity will cause you to tend to remain stationary.

It's not much of a secret to those that know me that I find my job boring and unimportant. Sure there is no shortage of people breaking computers and we're a relatively small IT team dealing with an entire comany. But really there is so much going on in the world that making IT systems work just seems to trivial. For every Zhuge Liang in the world, geniuses who are steadfast in their study and work tirelessly to achieve success no matter their situation, there are five Pang Tongs, people of equal ability who have fallen into the trap of just trying to escape their boredom with whatever means they can find. The difference between the two can often be as simple as being given the opportunity to actually make use of their talents.

Being bored is, of course, not an excuse to slack off. Ultimately sometimes the only way to be given an opportunity is to make one for yourself. 2018 is the year that I've decided is time that I stop languishing in a menial job that contains no intristic value to me. What makes this story so timely for me is that Saturday I got my acceptance letter for the grad school program I applied for and will be starting in the fall. And then, in what seems like a the universe determined to give me a sign that it's time for the Fledgling Phoenix (Pang Tong's nickname) to rise, almost immediately after I got that letter I received a text from a friend to come hang out for his birthday. What did he want to do? Get drunk at another friend's house and play Romance of the Three Kingdoms, something we haven't done in years!

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