As I was idling today in my garden to celebrate the 1 st of May, I reminded myself a joke my brother told me. Despite the celebration ;) I did some research and found that it was written by Heinrich Böll.
The story is set in an unnamed harbor somewhere in Europe. A smartly-dressed enterprising tourist is taking photographs when he notices a shabbily dressed local fisherman taking a nap in his fishing boat. The tourist is disappointed with the fisherman's apparently lazy attitude towards his work, so he approaches the fisherman and asks him why he is lying around instead of catching fish. The fisherman explains that he went fishing in the morning, and the small catch would be sufficient for the next two days.
The tourist tells him that if he goes out to catch fish multiple times a day, he would be able to buy a motor in less than a year, a second boat in less than two years, and so on. The tourist further explains that one day, the fisherman could even build a small cold storage plant, later a pickling factory and a fish restaurant, and export fish directly to Paris or Madrid.
The nonchalant fisherman asks: "Then what?"
The tourist enthusiastically continues: "Then, without a care in the world, you could sit here in the harbor, sunbathe and look at the glorious sea."
"But I'm already doing that", says the fisherman.
The enlightened tourist walks away, with no trace of pity for the fisherman, only a little envy.
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