{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder

“I would like to be alone, alone, alone. And in my house there is a daily parade of people to whom I have nothing to say. We would have to change neighborhood, city, country, continent, etc., etc. "

 Cioran, Notebooks

Sometimes I think of the ancient Rome.How much suffering that city must have witnessed.

It has been so many cruel kings and the common people are also no better.

So,much misery everywhere.

In my case,the natural programming has failed. I see people obsessed with getting married,begetting children.

Schopenhauer talked about how Dante got his idea of hell from human existence, but when he got to the idea of heaven, he couldn't even imagine a bliss state without discomfort.  Even the highest pleasure we attain just leaves us stuck in some treadmill, which reverts to pain.

James

If only people understood how luck shapes the most integral part of our existence, maybe they'd be a lot more stoic and noble. From winning the geographical, genetic and economic lottery. Some are lucky others aren't. No reason or meaning to it.

From-James

Holden,

Thank you for your message. I am sure you are taking care of yourself given the difficult circumstances you are living with. I hope your folks have ceased their wedding plans for you.

If the virus does not catch me any other disease will catch me sooner or later. Well, life caught me. Last week I had strong pains in the chest. Maybe it is a signal that my end is near but who knows?

When I was a teenager I used to watch many films directed by a famous French oceanographer called Jacques Cousteau. He died in 1997. He even won an Oscar for a documentary. I read than in an interview Cousteau said in 1991 in an interview that he was in favor of human population control and population decrease. In his words world population must be stabilized and to do that “we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” I suppose Monsieur Cousteau must be happy in his grave with the China bug.

Yes, life is perplexing as you say. You are among the few who think about this issue. In my last message I quoted a paragraph from this Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. He traveled to China in the 1950s and he wrote the following about Lao-Tzu:

“Confucius holds that man, being born into society, has certain obligations. The most important are those of carrying out the commands of the authorities and submissiveness to one’s parents. Also—respect for ancestors and tradition; the strict observance of the rules of etiquette; fealty to the existing order; and resistance to change. The Confucian man is loyal and docile vis-à-vis those in power. If you obediently and conscientiously hew to their dictates, says the master, you will survive.

Lao-Tzu (if he existed) recommends a different stance. The creator of Taoism advises keeping oneself at a remove from
everything. Nothing lasts, says the master. So do not become attached to anything. All that exists will perish; therefore rise above it, maintain your distance, do not try to become somebody, do not try to pursue or possess something. Act through inaction: your strength is weakness and helplessness; your wisdom, naïveté and ignorance. If you want to survive, become useless, unnecessary to everyone. Live far from others, become a hermit, be satisfied with a bowl of rice, a sip of water. And most important—observe the Tao. But what is Tao? It’s impossible to say, because the essence of Tao is its vagueness and inexpressibleness: “If Tao lets itself be defined as Tao, then it is not genuine Tao,” says the master. Tao is a path, not a heading, and to observe Tao is to keep to that path and walk straight ahead.”

I can say Lao-Tzu was an interesting and wise man. Can millions of men and women in this age of entertainment and endless distractions be satisfied with a bowl of rice and a sip of water? I think not.

Stay well.

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense!
Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,
But I alone am drifting not knowing where I am.
Like a new-born babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.

Other have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other men are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other men are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea.
Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

- Tao Te Ching Chp. 20

Silenus,

Thank you for sharing these words by Tao Te Ching. I hope you are allright there.

I have shared with Holden things I have read in Travels with Herodotus by the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński and again let me share some paragraphs I remember:

He opens it, reads, and learns that in Corinth, after thirty years of bloodthirsty rule, the tyrant called Cypselus died and was succeeded by his son, Periander, who would in time turn out to be even more bloodthirsty than his father. This Periander, when he was still a dictator-in-training, wanted to learn how to stay in power, and so sent a messenger to the dictator of Miletus, old Thrasybulus, asking him for advice on how best to keep a people in slavish fear and subjugation.

Thrasybulus, writes Herodotus, took the man sent by Periander out of the city and into a field where there were crops growing. As he walked through the grain, he kept questioning the messenger and getting him to repeat over and over again what he had come from Corinth to ask. Meanwhile, every time he saw an ear of grain standing higher than the rest, he broke it off and threw it away, and he went on doing this until he had destroyed the choicest, tallest stems in the crop. After this walk across the field, Thrasybulus sent Periander’s man back home, without having offered him any advice. When the man got back to Corinth, Periander was eager to hear Thrasybulus’ recommendations, but the agent said that he had not made any at all. In fact, he said, he was surprised that Periander had sent him to a man of that kind—a lunatic who destroyed his own property—and he described what he had seen Thrasybulus doing.

Periander, however, understood Thrasybulus’ actions. He realized that he had been advising him to kill outstanding citizens, and from then on he treated his people with unremitting brutality. If Cypselus had left anything undone during his spell of slaughter and persecution, Periander finished the job.


Stay well.