I think it’s time that Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Cuban, or someone I’m related to who wants to share the royalties to invent a Find My Enemies App. We already have Find My Friends. Why not Find My Enemies?
You’ve heard the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Well, this is the same concept. This bit of wisdom is credited to a man named Sun Tsu. Mr. Tsu lived in China about 2500 years ago, give or take a hockey season. He was a failed artist who decided to give it a go in the war business. He was so good at it that they made him a general and then a Chinese publisher threw a wad of yuan (or whatever they called cash back then) at him to write his memoirs. Still longing to be respected as an artist, he called his book The Art of War.
Little did he know that a few thousand years later, middle school basketball coaches and regional sales managers would still be quoting him today. If he did, he would have negotiated a better long-term royalty deal. And his heirs would be rolling in the cash because at the time of this blog post, Mr. Tsu remains dead.
Anyway, Mr. Tsu’s wisdom is as good today as when he was thwarting China’s enemies with quotes like, “Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness.” Just saying that to the Mongols kept them sufficiently confused for days. I know it had me scratching my head.
So, if Mr. Tsu says to keep my enemies close, then I want an app to do just that. For example, I’m going to a baseball game this weekend. It would be nice to know if any enemies are sitting in my section. And if so, what is the likelihood that they could reach me with a projectile? Am I safe from, let’s say, a hot dog thrown my way? Of course, at concession stand prices, if I catch that hot dog on the fly, I’m eating it. (There’s no 5-second rule at a ball game. If it touches the ground, it is lost forever.)
What if he throws a beer? The app could tell me if my enemy has the arm to get it there or if it’s going to fall short and hit my wife instead. Maybe the app should have spouse mode and can tell me how much trouble I would be in if I didn’t jump between her and the beer.
If it was really a sophisticated app, it could tell me things like:
Don’t get in that line at the grocery store. The checkout person just got yelled at by the manager. Your eggs are in danger!
Don’t change lanes (when I’m driving), the person trying to merge on the right just got fired.
Don’t go to the class reunion. The guy who bullied you in high school will be there!
I think this would be far more useful than the apps that Apple is always trying to sell me. I did get bullied for a brief time in high school. Too bad we didn’t have phones and apps then. But then I think about all the embarrassing things I did that never made it to social media and I’m glad we didn’t have that technology in the 80s. Those records are officially sealed. As long as somebody doesn’t invent the Find Who Knows Where the Skeletons Are Buried app!
Carry on, Citizens!
