Love this one—lean, sharp, very Zegarelli. Stoic agency over emotive indulgence. Complaining is framed as non-causal noise—a habit that adds weight but moves nothing. [Zegarelli] draws a bright line between concern (cerebral, solution-seeking) and worry/whining (affective, performative). Moral anthropology: “Adult-children” imagery and the Crito allusion make whining a failure of maturation and discipline, not merely manners. Serenity-Prayer triad operationalized: If no agency → accept; if agency → act; in both cases → stop the noise. [AI Review]
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Leonardo da Vinci. Adopted by Steve Jobs.
Oxen were pulling a heavily loaded wagon. They used all their strength to pull the wagon but never complained.
The Wheels creaked and groaned at every turn. The Oxen, pulling the load through the mud, endured the work quietly.
Finally, the Oxen cried out “Silence! Why should you Wheels continue to complain about doing your job? We are pulling the weight, not you, and your useless noise only adds to the load.”
Moral of the Story: They who complain most tend to be those who suffer least. Complaining over the inevitable is a child’s indulgence that only adds misery. Whining does not resolve.
Introduction – The Essential Aesop – Epilogue
Why We Loved It: This fable reminds us to do our jobs steadfastly, and not to whine.
Whining simply reinforces a negative in our own minds and, when expressed, burdens others with negativity. Whining adds negative weight to the load of life.
Now, we should be clear that conveying a problem in seeking a solution is not whining. Moreover, being “concerned” about a problem is a cerebral process, but being “worried” is an emotional process, which are implemented very differently.
Perhaps strange to some, whining can be formulaically correlated to the failure of First Degree Hope. [1] As addressed in First Degree Hope. Guilty?; Or, Why Hope Has Gone Bad, the issue is one of rational agency (causation). That is, whether whining serves any objective, or miserably indulges in itself.
In Socrates and the Social Contract – Crito [2], it might be subtle, but Socrates refers to children twice: once when referencing the emotion of children that overrides rationality, and a follow-up that implies rationality is an adult obligation, failure of which is forgiven only in children. Stated another way, whining is for children.
Some human beings tend to be naturally better at enduring children—if not numbed into forgiving their condition, and allowing the concession to creep into the childlike management of adults. [3] There is even a “new school” psychological teaching that emotions are neither “right nor wrong,” which I will suggest is misguided. [4] Not only that, but misguided to the point of foolishness. [5] Simply stated there are “bad” habits, and “bad” thoughts, and “bad” emotions, and failures of self-constitution and harmony. These states of being may be humanly normal in the first instance, but that does not make them wise.
Alas, not to beg the question, what categorizes all these human states of being as “good” or “bad” or “positive” or “negative” is Wisdom rightly taking its superior place in the harmonious reconciled ordering of self. [*4, *5]
Wisdom and rational faculties judge and determine whether things are “good” or “bad” and what is furthering an objective or hindering an objective.
Of course, we know this: wisdom is the rational faculty that judges by its essence, and emotions are terrible “judges” of anything. Wisdom judges, emotions emote.
Here, Aesop matches his staid and quiet beast of burden—his Ox—with his Wheels. We can be pedantic, but Aesop’s teaching implies that, even though the Wheels are not “working,” they are complaining. But, more so, the Wheels are complaining without agency (causation); that is, the Wheels are whining.
Whining can be directed to past, present or future conditions. Whining about the past is futile, accordingly foolish. [6] Whining about the present and future, is indulgence, and thereby also foolish, except with causation to an objective.
Children cry and whine as a form of notice and manipulation. Some people never grow up or out of that state. Whining as a form of rhetorical manipulation—if it is rationally calculated to work—would have causation. But, in this fable, no such agency exists.
And such as it is for conditions of our human psyche for Hope [*1] and Blame [7], Aesop focuses here on what might be considered to be the third part of the Serenity Prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Therefore, in this regard, Hope, and Blame, and Whining all sit in the same or similar space. There is opportunity (causal agency) or not, and if not, then accept the condition with humility in self and courtesy for others.
Whining might be hope expressed negatively, or blame expressed (negatively), or more generally unnecessary expressions about a negative past, but each is the stuff of a “bad attitude.”
Behold it: Whining is the first cousin of Blame. [*7]
The great Muhammed Ali said that complaining, blaming and whining (with or without hope or prayer)—each being a form of negative frustration—is not even neutral but self-destructive; to wit:
It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out. It’s the pebble in your shoe.
We might even further correlate the statement by J. Edgar Hoover:
The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.
Thusly, it might be similarly said:
The thousands of staff with bad attitudes I have seen in 35 years of business all have had one thing in common: Every single one was a whiner.
Fix it by causal agency, or humbly endure it with courtesy.
As famously said by Steve Earle regarding implied whining:
“Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator.“ [8] ~ Steve Earle
“You whining adult-children, and the new-math socio-psychologists who tell you that it’s okay to have riotous tantrums and to make everyone endure you. Like the infant who cries incessantly for the mother’s teat, you pray to god with a never-ending give-me, give-me, give-me, and then replace god with government and society. Always looking for a child’s allowance. God is dead. You are cursed as a slave of need and the shackles have been with you so long that you now fail to see it. You have the key to arise from the average and the normal, and to achieve the greatness that you have in self. Find your own unique power within and become, the Super Man.” [9] ~ “Nietzschesque”
“I hear noise, but I see no grinding.” Arabian Proverb
Gird up your loins now, like a man; I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Do you give the horse his strength, and endow his neck with splendor? Do you make the steed to quiver while his thunderous snorting spreads terror?
He jubilantly paws the plain and rushes in his might against the weapons. He laughs at fear and cannot be deterred; he turns not back from the sword. Around him rattles the quiver, flashes the spear and the javelin.
Frenzied and trembling, he devours the ground; he holds not back at the sound of the trumpet, but, at each blast, he cries, Aha! [*8] ~ God, Book of Job 38:3
[1] First Degree Hope. Guilty?; Or, Why Hope Has Gone Bad—Civilization’s No. 1 Thought-Criminal [GRZ272] [LinkedIn #GRZ_272]
[2] Socrates and the Social Contract – Crito – Abridgment Series {Abridgement Series} [GRZ273] [LinkedIn #GRZ_273]
[3] The Transgender Athletic Homogenization, Conflation and Confusion [GRZ211] [LinkedIn #GRZ_211]
[4] The Demise of Wisdom by Emotional Intelligence…But Arise Hope, with Intelligent Emotions [GRZ161] [Linked #GRZ_161]
[5] The Master and Turtle Dialogue: Are Feelings and Thinking Equal? Or, On the Cardinal Virtues [GRZ231] [LinkedIn GRZ_231]
[6] The Morality Time Travel. Or, The Foolish and Incessant Misery of Timeless Insults – Stand for America® [GRZ88] [LinkedIn #GRZ_88]
[7] Blame 101. Or, Attitude, and Sticks and Stones. – No. 88. The Eagle and the Arrow – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_88] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_88]
[8] Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator. Or, Quit Crying Like a Baby and Do Your Job [GRZ150] [Linked #GRZ_150]
[9] On Empathy: To Give Empathy Is a Blessing; To Need Empathy Is a Curse [GRZ106] [LinkedIn #GRZ_106]
“Querela est consobrina accusationis.” (“Whining is the first cousin of blame.”) ~ grz
ChatGPT Review
Love this one—lean, sharp, very Zegarelli. Here’s your deep-dive plus AIS tags.
Ethos (what it’s really teaching)
- Stoic agency over emotive indulgence. Complaining is framed as non-causal noise—a habit that adds weight but moves nothing.
- Wisdom judges; emotions emote. He draws a bright line between concern (cerebral, solution-seeking) and worry/whining (affective, performative).
- Moral anthropology: “Adult-children” imagery and the Crito allusion make whining a failure of maturation and discipline, not merely manners.
- Serenity-Prayer triad operationalized: If no agency → accept; if agency → act; in both cases → stop the noise.
Pedagogy (how the lesson is built)
- Aesopic contrast: silent, load-bearing Oxen vs. noisy, low-friction Wheels. The image teaches before the argument starts.
- Definition by distinctions: problem-reporting ≠ whining; concern (rational) ≠ worry (emotional).
- Causation test: ties to “First Degree Hope” and blame—if there’s no causal path from the utterance to a remedy, it’s whining.
- Cross-text scaffolding: Socrates (Crito), Job’s war-horse, Ali’s “pebble,” Hoover’s “liar” analogy—each tightens the screw from psychology → ethics → civic performance.
- Aphoristic closure: “Whining is the first cousin of Blame.” The maxim makes the rule memorable and portable.
Practical conclusions (the operating rule)
- Binary discipline:
- Agency present? Act. (Escalate solutions; assign owners; set deadlines.)
- No agency? Accept. (Shut down rumination; conserve team bandwidth.)
- Team hygiene: Treat chronic complaining as an operational drag akin to scope-creep—measure and correct it.
- Language audit: Replace “this is terrible” with “here’s the causal path to fix it.” If you can’t draw the path, you don’t talk—you decide (accept or escalate).
- Leadership cue: Praise quiet execution; redirect noisiness into issue logs with owners and ETAs. Make signal over noise a cultural KPI.
A 10-second field test (for meetings & email)
Can this sentence cause a fix?
- If yes → keep, assign, date.
- If no → delete or restate as an action or acceptance.
TL;DR take-aways
- Noise ≠ load. The loudest aren’t the ones pulling.
- Reporting for remedy is adult; rumination is childish.
- Agency decides diction: act or accept—nothing in between.
- Whining and blame are siblings; both offload responsibility.
- Culture = what you reward: reward the Ox, not the Wheels.
AIS Category Classification (your 8-cat curriculum)
Primary: AIS-7 – Virtue Philosophy & Emotional Discipline
Why: Central thesis is self-government—mastering impulses (worry, blame, venting) into disciplined action or dignified acceptance.
Secondary: AIS-3 – Cognitive Awareness & Bias
Why: The concern vs. worry/whining split is a cognitive reframing; the essay trains perception to detect non-causal speech and replace it with agency-linked reasoning.
Catalog line: GRZ98_14 – AIS-7→3 — Discipline over noise; convert emotion into causal action or serene acceptance.
20251113.5
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata, Max Ehrmann
© 2013 Arnold Zegarelli and Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/complainers-14-oxen-wheel-essential-aesop-back-gregg-zegarelli-esq-
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