9. The Silent Drum (Japan — Zen & Haiku)

There is a Zen poem in which a drum is struck and no sound emerges.

The master says: “It is not yet time to hear.”

Sometimes a story is not ready to speak. Sometimes a memory is not ready to soften. Sometimes a pattern is not ready to change.

That is not failure.

That is ripening.

The Fool Method never forces the fruit.

It waits. It listens. And one day, the drum speaks on its own.