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God (or a genie, or whatever) promised to a guy he would grant him a wish, under the condition that the neighbour of the guy would have been granted a DOUBLE wish.
The guy thought deeply, and finally said: "Let me blind to an eye".
This story is very deep, and human psychology seems to be rooted in this kind of behaviour. I am also interested in variants of this story.
With references, of course!
Edit: +1 - Thanks for the search...it's 'under my skin' and has me in personal review mode. On the spiritual path, these connections are gold.
Not sure how "deep" these stories are [Unless you meant deeply embedded in human nature]. They seem to be longer expressions of the age-old saying, "Cut off your nose to spite your face", meaning, "hurt oneself in the course of trying to hurt another more". It's in the news every day. And, I suspect, part of everyone's life at some time.
The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops ... By Michael Heller
A genie offers an [ ]entrepreneur one wish. Any wish. Big smiles. Then, the genie gives one condition: “Whatever you wish for, your neighbor will get double.” Frowns. The entrepreneur thinks and thinks. Eventually, the smile returns. “I wish that you blind me in one eye.”
Using basic search terms in Google, multiple hits were found. The earliest was 1921. However, the use of specific groups rather than generic peoples causes me to decline to post them. One version was quite 'twisted' - as are some versions in life.
10 Scientific Facts About Spite BY NEEL V PATEL
- SPITEFUL BEHAVIOR COULD BE A SIGN OF PSYCHOPATHY. In psychology, the dark triad of personality traits are psychopathy (the inability to experience emotions like remorse, empathy, and be social with others), narcissism (the obsession with one’s self), and Machiavellianism (willingness to be duplicitous and disregard morality to achieve one’s own goals).
In 2014, researchers at Washington State University, led by psychologist David Marcus, had more than 1200 participants take a personality test, in which they were presented with 17 statements like "I would be willing to take a punch if it meant that someone I did not like would receive two punches" and "If my neighbor complained about the appearance of my front yard, I would be tempted to make it look worse just to annoy him or her," then had to indicate how much they agreed with those statements.
The results, published in Psychological Assessment, showed that high scores in spitefulness correlated highly with psychopathy as well, along with the other two dark triad traits.
