Death by a Thousand Cuts
How ‘they’ system is designed to slowly kill your mojo and depress you — and how to get it back again
Over 1000 years ago, around 900AD, there was a form of torture and execution practised in China and Vietnam known as Lingchi. It was banned only as recently as 1905.
Lingchi was translated variously as the slow process, the lingering death, or slow slicing, and was also nicknamed “Death by a Thousand Cuts”. In this form of execution, a knife was used to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time, eventually resulting in death. The cuts on their own weren’t fatal, but together, the pain would slowly increase until they made the victim bleed to death in an excruciating manner. Often Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially heinous, such as treason.
(Ironically, Death by a Thousand Cuts is also a Taylor Swift song. I am leaving it up to you to decide as to which of these punishments is more painful to endure.)
The phrase in modern language has come to mean a situation where lots of small bad things are happening, none of which are fatal in themselves…
