After reading the Daoism part of our book it is easy for me to see why Eastern writings are not as often studdied as the more familiar Western texts we were all exposed to in high school. This is just a completely different animal than anything I had read before. I'm not sure I can even compare it to the similar literature being produced in the West during the same time frames. I really feel that it just didn't respect me as a reader. I truly wish I had those two hours of my life back.
Was it a success for me? No, it was an unsuccess or a nonsuccess, I'm not really sure which. I would say it was a failure, but Daoism won't let me. I take that back. I guess I can call it a failure, but then if it truly were successful, then it could only be a nonfailure. It either is or isn't. It is never opposite because apparently opposites don't really exist. Everything I thought I knew about the world, I don't. Do I know nothing or non-nothing? I can't be an optimist or a pessimist, I can only be an optimist or a non-optimist.
It might be a great thing to live in a world without labels and opposites, but does that even really exist in the Eastern school of thought. I have a feeling these things exist, Daoists just choose to ignore them. To Daoists, do smart people even exist? Or are they merely not stupid? If I break a law, am I a lawbreaker, or a non rule follower? How can I face consequences for my actions when what I am doing isn't wrong? It is merely not right and the right things are merely not wrong. But, just because I am doing non rights doesn't mean I am doing wrongs, and just because I am doing non wrongs doesn't mean I am doing right. It sure is easy to follow, isn't it?
This appears to be a great way of life to embrace if you don't like consequences. There is always a way to excuse your shortcomings. Nothing in your life will be a weakness, it will merely be a non strength. In today's United States where everybody plays the blame game (as in blaming everybody else for your problems), I can't believe that this philosophy is not the dominant one in North America. Things are the way are because that is the way it is. We are not responsible for our own actions, we are merely responsible for our own non action or some kind of combination like that. In all of the double speak, it is pretty easy to get lost.
The way to Oz isn't a path paved with yellow bricks, it is merely covered with non red bricks. The Boston Red Sox don't have the Green Monster at Fenway Park, they just have the Non Brown Non Human at Fenway Park. I would have loved to have embraced this in high school, but I don't think my parents would have allowed it. I am truly not a Daoist because I just don't get it. My path to heaven will just have to be paved with good intentions, or at least non-bad intentions, and if I end up in Hell, I can just take pride in the fact that it is just non Heaven.
I have to say I really didn't see anything in the readings that said that the Way is a way without consequence. I don't feel that you're really trying to get this, rather you're just letting what you think you understand impede your ability to try to get something that you don't get.
ReplyDeleteBy the same token, someone could read Christianity in the following way: Christians believe in an omniscient God. Therefore, they believe that God knows what they're going to do before they do it. Therefore, no matter what they do it's what God would have them do because God wouldn't have them do anything He didn't know they would do before they would do it. Therefore, it doesn't matter what I do because no matter what I do it's what God knew I was going to do anyway. So, what's the point in trying to do anything differently than what I'm going to do anyway?
See, by oversimplifying one point of Christianity, we can get almost the exact same results as you have for daoism. I doubt you'd find many Christians who would like the way I just described their faith, but it's based on pretty sound logic.
Be willing to not understand something and struggle with the knowing. Accept that maybe, just maybe, there really is no spoon.