“Better to take a flint than beg for fire; better to dig a well than borrow water” appears in the Lanming chapter of the Huainanzi. A flint is a means of making fire, while the second image refers to drawing water from somebody else’s well. The line follows an account in which Yi receives the elixir of immortality but cannot obtain it again. Its point is that receiving something once is not the same as possessing a renewable source.
It does not claim that asking for help is always wrong. Borrowing fire is sensible in an emergency. But when a need keeps returning, reliance on occasional gifts leaves control elsewhere. A restrained modern reading is to distinguish immediate relief from durable capability, then decide whether the moment calls for one bucket of water or the long work of digging a well.
https://ctext.org/huainanzi/lan-ming-xun/zh
Discover more from Geoffrey Chen
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.