“Would you rather breathe under water,” my son began, but I knew where this was going and cut him off. Fly, I said. We were on a boardwalk over Juanita Bay, watching the sunset as a family. “Would you rather,” he started again, but again I interrupted. The answer is always Fly. I tried to explain this as a wise man explains a simple world to a complex child. But he persisted in the game. Would you rather this? Would you rather that? It was a challenge to him now, but of course nothing compares to Fly.
He is young and clever, so he said, “Would you rather fly if you could not stop and flew to your death?” I am older and still a little clever, so I said, “Fly. What is life, after all, but a long flight toward death?”
He was quiet for a moment, trying to set up a trap for me. Then he grinned triumphantly: “Would you rather fly or be with Mom?”
My wife looked around to listen for the answer, interested for the first time in this conversation. But I am still a little clever, so I offered, “I would fly into your mother’s arms.”
Sophistry is a perfectly good equation for an incorrect sum. And everyone recognizes this except the marketer, the lawyer, or the man on the boardwalk at sunset. The childish game began to sound like a stark accusation aimed squarely at middle age. Why is Fly always the answer?
But I am still a little clever, so I said: “Would you rather be connected to a Siamese twin who hated you, and sometimes tried to kill you in the night, or fly?”
He picked Fly, and I maintained a narrow lead in the game.
Back in 1990 when I worked in Lanzhou, China, I traveled to a small Tibetan village with a few friends. On the way up our bus started to break down. The driver opened the engine compartment and fixed things right up with a pencil. Ridiculous and ingenious. That is China, everywhere you go. 
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