In an age where it seems like everyone is “just telling it like it is,” I sometimes wonder if the truly wise have simply packed up their words and gone underground.
Sure directness has its place—it’s great for ordering coffee or telling someone their shoelace is untied. But the great masters knew the game was often won in the shadows.
Lao Tzu, for example, didn’t hand you a GPS to enlightenment. He gave you a compass without labels and whispered, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Which step? In which direction? Well, you’ll just have to walk and find out. That’s not evasiveness, rather it’s respect for your intelligence.
The Tao of Not Explaining Everything
Zhuangzi, the ancient Chinese master of the whimsical-yet-deep, once told stories about giant fish turning into birds, useless trees that lived forever, and dreaming he was a butterfly. He wasn’t trying to confuse you (although that was a bonus). He was giving you space—space to roll your eyes, to pontificate the thought in your mind, rub it against your life experience, and discover meaning that fit you.
This is Taoism’s subtle genius: saying just enough to set your mind in motion, but never so much that the thought hardens into dogma. Like a Zen koan—“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”—the point isn’t to answer but to wonder. And in the wondering, transformation slips in quietly, unannounced.
Jesus, Master of the Hidden Punchline
Jesus was another master of code. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.” Small seed, big kingdom—what’s the fuck? Or, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” Was this spiritual truth or cosmic joke? Probably both.
His parables forced listeners to engage. They weren’t fortune cookies to be consumed and forgotten—they were seeds planted in the mind, waiting for the right conditions to sprout.
He understood that truth shouted often becomes noise. But truth whispered in metaphor? That can haunt you for decades.
Confucius and the Long Game
Confucius had his own approach where he dropped hints like breadcrumbs and left it up to you to connect them. A student might ask a question, and he’d respond with a seemingly unrelated proverb. Only after the student lived a little—made some mistakes, fell in love, got their taxes wrong—would the meaning reveal itself.
It’s the difference between being given the answer key before the exam and being given a riddle that teaches you how to think.
Answers are cheap. Insight is earned.
Muhammad Ali: The Poet in the Ring
Speaking in code isn’t just for monks and prophets. Muhammad Ali floated through it, too. His rhymes—“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”—weren’t just bravado; they were psychological warfare. He left opponents wondering if they were up against a boxer or a bard.
Like Sun Tzu’s Art of War teaching to “win without fighting,” Ali often won before the first bell, his opponents mentally outboxed by his mystique.
The Homeless Oracle
Every city has one—the disheveled figure mumbling to themselves on a park bench. Most people walk by without listening. But every so often, one of those mutterings will stop you cold—some strange, poetic truth that sounds like it was stolen from a lost gospel.
It makes you realize: wisdom doesn’t always arrive in a pressed suit. Sometimes it’s wrapped in riddles, mumbled through chapped lips, and dismissed as madness by those who can’t hear past the static.
Ambiguity as a Strategic Disguise
Here’s the paradox: I believe that the clearer people think they have you figured out, the less they truly see you. Once your playbook is public, you’re predictable. And to me, predictability is the enemy of power.
The masters knew this. By speaking in parables, they left room for multiple interpretations, letting others project their own meaning. Ambiguity is a kind of camouflage in that it allows you to keep moving while others are still puzzling over what you meant.
Zen and the Joy of Perpetual Confusion
A Zen koan is the ultimate conversational curveball. “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” “What was your original face before you were born?” The aim isn’t clarity. Instead it’s to rattle the cage of your thinking until something deeper wakes up.
Life is ambiguous, paradoxical, and absurd. Why pretend our language should be any different?
Why I Sometimes Speak in Code
I’ll admit it: I use this in my own life. Not to be evasive (well, maybe sometimes), but to keep the conversation alive long after I’ve left the room. When someone has to think about what you said, they remember it. They may even start to see you as mysterious. And mysterious people get more room to move.
The moment they have you all figured out, you’re done. You become a known quantity—safe, predictable, and easy to file away. Better to remain a puzzle with one or two missing pieces.
The Parable Is the Point
In the end, speaking in code isn’t about hiding truth—it’s about giving it time to breathe. A parable is a slow-release capsule. It works on you while you’re not looking.
Sometimes you’ll get it immediately; other times, years later, in the middle of peeling an orange, it will hit you. And you’ll laugh, because you finally see it and you’ll also laugh because you realize you never really saw it at all.
My Epilogue: The Last Word That Isn’t
I’ve learned this much on the road: the straightest line between two points is rarely worth walking. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s boring. A parable is a crooked trail with hidden fruit trees along the way.
When I speak in code, it’s not to hide—though hiding is sometimes a bonus—it’s to invite you to play. To make you tilt your head, squint a little, and wonder if what I just said was wisdom or nonsense. (Spoiler: it’s usually both.)
I’ve met Zen monks who spoke less clearly than a foghorn in a thunderstorm and homeless poets who said more in one muttered phrase than some gurus say in a lifetime of retreats. And I’ve realized this: if you can be understood by everyone, you’re not saying anything worth remembering.
So I’ll keep handing you keys without telling you which lock they fit. You’ll figure it out. Or maybe you won’t. Either way, the point was never the answer.
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Stay unpredictable,
Diamond Michael Scott — The Chocolate Taoist
These little tidbits of knowledge are quite enjoyable. Thank you.
Gold! ✨