chenping

Are you talking about primal human nature before enculturation? In other words, the nature of a clean unformatted computer hard-drive before installation of an operating system and other programs? How can this be applied to human nature? We are all not only the result of enculturation but also acculturation. You assume that If you remove all learnings because you deem them unnatural, you will arrive at a natural clean slate? Sounds logical. But I think it is the same kind of logic that deduces the possibility of digging a hole in the ground in Chicago to come up in Shanghai. After all the Earth is a round ball. Is it really? Which Chapter? But we are all different. We need and are attached to our cultural differences and would rather die than be deculturated. We are all like different kinds of flowers in a garden. What is a rose without the difference that distinguishes it from a lily? You kidding, right? Chinamen do well in any culture you find them. It's because of their Chinese cultural learnings that they succeed in cultures alien to their own. No human beings of another race is as capable at doing this. The Japanese has some of this survival skill. But don't fool yourself that they have to give up any aspect of their own culture in order to succeed in foreign lands. Even a Japanese Christian would tell you that he is, first, Japanese. A little harder? Have you seen Daniel Craig in "Skyfall" as James Bond in Shanghai? My neighbor in Chicago told me the other day that her college-bound kid brother is dying to go back to Shanghai where he spent last summer tending bars. China is not evolving towards freedom at all. Free market capitalism was invented in China long before Christopher Columbus discovered America. The dragon is awakening from its slumber. I don't think European Americans can culturally embed themselves in China as easily as the Chinese can transform themselves into Americans. But don't forget that American culture is not monolithic. Money open doors; otherwise, the class structure in America is as tight as the caste system of India. As long as we are not in the herd, straw dogs, so to speak, freedom is assured regardless of geography. To be free, one has to disengage from the masses. This doesn't mean one has to join the ruling class and become a palace tortoise. If I were to disagree, would that make me racist? There must be a reason why people are so different in terms of everything: language, cuisine, look, skin color, customs. And to deny this obvious natural diversity is to be unnatural.

I'm afraid the American freedom concept does not apply to China where each has a place in the scheme of things. Life has an implicate order. The I Ching tells us that. Violate that order and misfortune follows.

It sure does. Ok, buddy. You are very expressive visually. I do like your pictures, though.

How can you discuss the Dao when you are so blatantly political?

You are so right. Freedom is indeed a moral value. It could be the root of all human values. If man is truly free, he wouldn't need to learn the Ten Commandments or the Tao Te Ching. We go looking for the eternal Tao in China and it was always here. God bless America.

My brain "root" could be injured in making attempts to get your point across to western Philosophical Daoists what a classical Chinese verse means. Western philosophical daoists never understood why the common Chinese Taoist has no understanding of the Tao Te Ching or care to understand the Tao Te Ching. Westerners assume that these common Chinese Taoist practitioners are uneducated and it would take a western Harvard-educated professor to lay bare the teachings of the Tao Te Ching for educated westerners to absorb and become adherents of Philsophical Daoism. The reason why even Chinese educated at top Chinese universities in China cannot make sense of classical Chinese, not to mention the Tao Te Ching, is something to consider. Classical Chinese was written by the creme de la creme of Chinese scholars for the elite class in China. Words like vagina and penis cannot be found anywhere in classical Chinese literature. There are no direct statements and if you don't get it first time around, just forget it. Has anyone here pondered why the classical Tao Te Ching meant for the elites of China is not accessible to the common Chinese (and this includes graduates from Tsinghua University) but is bedtime reading material for egalitarian westerners (and this includes 18 year-olds high school dropouts)? Do you think that a western brat is equivalent to the Son of Heaven of ancient China? What arrogance!

Is manliness an idea or is it something as substantially real as the eyeballs in your head? You need to keep your story straight. I thought you said women have external criteria and you have a problem with them because you don't fit their idea of masculinity. So, you don't have a problem then. Try straightening it out if you haven't lost it already.

Do you mean American morality is rooted in wanting to be free?

I don't think you, personally, have a problem. Eighteen year-olds don't open up on the net about their problems. If things get bad enough, they just hang themselves. There you go. At 18, you've got your shit together about people a lot better then most folks here and their median age is closer to 80 than 18. You want the ladies and they don't want you? Relax. It's not about you. It's about money. If you have the money, honey, you would be a chick magnet even if you are a dwarf with two heads. Feel better now? No? You want to pose another problem about women not wanting you just because you are not wealthy?

Don't you think it ludicrous to be morally derisive of America? Everything from airliners to polio vaccine have come out of America. The entire world is driven by American ingenuity and awash with American products. Kids everywhere are chowing down American food and they love it. And the young around the world are dancing to American music, wear American fashion, watch American movies and they love it. Even the old enjoy a better quality of life on account of US medical technological advancements. Last but not least, we are all connected because of American technology. If America has no moral message because she is the great Satan, then the only way that makes sense is that we are all devils living in Taoist Hell.

Ducati? They are cool bikes. I ride BMWs and Hondas. But the style and the mystique will always belong to the Harley. You may not ride anymore, but you will always be a rider at heart. I ride horses too but they are a whole different story. How come there are no American fables with a good moral message? What do you think about Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby? Does it count?

Ok then but don't count on it. Steppenwolf is heavy metal. You ride? And I don't mean a horse.

The first part of your problem is the attitude of others whom, you insinuate, are drawn to stereotype hunks. It's not just the west. Women everywhere are attracted to manly men. It has to do with ying-yang magic of the Tao. It is the western rejection of traditional values of manhood and womanhood that is messing you up. The trouble you have is your own attitude. You just don't want to fit in. You want the world to cave in to your western philosophy of the right to self-determination. You want to pervert the Tao which is very black and white, male and female, right and wrong, with no ifs and buts about life. You don't crave acceptance. You just want others to feel guilty for following the Tao of Lao Tzu. You want others to follow the Tao of dhiggs.

Good question. I would say it means having a biologically male body, to start with. That's the costume for playing the part of a man. Some of us have problem playing the part. How come other animals with male bodies have no problem playing the part at all? I can't imagine an African lion or a Silverback gorilla having dhigg's problem.

How about looking at this from another angle? What does caring suppose to mean? Neither does it shock lions who kill off all cubs when they take over a pride. Here again, there is this "do not care" situation. Seems cruel to those who care. Care about what? Does this have anything to do with sociopathy? You imply that this circus is being conducted. Is this really true? Occupiers believe that this is true. This belief provides the basis for class struggles.

Is there anyone, dead or alive, who measures up to your ideal of manhood? Isn't accepting responsibility as stereotypical a concept of being a man as getting a bigger penis? How about kicking that up a notch with CIA surveillance techniques: mounting cameras in every room as well as the car; wire-tapping; tracking expenses and following the money trail. Don't you think mapping out your pattern of life on the outside should also be included in gathering intelligence about the self? Is fighting an essential part of being a man?

What were you laughing at? Be brave, be honest. What tickled you? It had to be either a truthful stab (of the Chuang Tzu kind) or a funny stab of a foolish kind. Not really. Generally, a lot of folk fables and fairy tales carry truthful moral messages. I like Aesop's fables and Grimm Fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Elves and the Shoemaker and Cinderella. Then we have fake stuff like this horseshit pushing a false message that justify being a clueless loser, demonizing responsible industrious way of life, and glorifying copping out to sleep on park benches or moving to Ecuador as a higher calling of the Tao. Disappointment never arises for winners who are always on the lookout for better things. This is not greed as losers want us to believe. This is the natural human spirit driven by a "God-given" excitement to discover life's limitless bounteous offerings. Life is good, and we've only just begun. Here is a song to brighten up your day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_p2oFc0p2s

A boat is a hole in the water you fill with money. If you filled a lot of money in that hole, you would not care where the horse has gone or why you are in the boat in the valley. You would not wonder where you are going. You would know. That's life and no brief distraction of any kind could change the way you feel about anything because you are neither clueless nor a loser. The only thing for certain is that your boat has four decks, ten bathrooms, garages for your Ferraris and is propelled by two 3000 horsepower Caterpillar engines costing $2 million each. They are the modern-day equivalent of several hundred oarsmen that powered the boat of Ptolemy, the Pharaoh who ruled Eygpt 200 years before Christ. Chinese fables are one of those relaxation things that put you to sleep when your life is so pointlessly boring that you need something, anything, to keep you from wanting to end it.

Cat, don't you want to learn about the Heng connection to Shamanism?

People do emigrate all the time and it is possible to leave the home country. Not in your case, though. My wealth? I wish. I don't have $20 billion; not even $1 billion which, to me, is the defining line between the wealthy and those living from hand to mouth. I live every moment wishing that I could be wealthy. Without wealth, there is no evidence of Tao. Lee Kuan Yew has the Tao. To my mind, he is the wealthiest and most powerful man in the world. None of Forbes top billionaires has a security detail comprising F16 strike fighters guarding his safety and possessions. He is a strong winner in my book. Singaporeans are no more capable than Malaysians and Lee Kuan Yew made Singapore a reality. I wish more Singaporeans would come forward to contribute to the Tao of Lee Kuan Yew. I would love to be in that think tank. Singapore could lead the way, be a laboratory for developing the best society for mankind.

Why are you being harsh on Chidragon? He is a good Taoist. I have never understood your unhappiness with Singapore. Any Taoist would be happy living there. I visited the Botanical Gardens last weekend and I thought of you. Why run away to third-world Taiping to be close to nature when you have the Botanical Gardens in a well-run first-world city?

Actually, I didn't meet anyone in the middle of the bridge. I do my own thing and mind my own business. People just get in my face. Like this:

No, I don't go my way. I stand firm. You go your way. Two down and one to go. Samurai, you're next to fall.

Tell me, who can tolerate living under the oppression of a different viewpoint? Humans are political animals. They push each other around all the time either as individuals or as a mob. Democracy is actually mobocracy: majority rules. It's the same in gangland where triads, yakuzas and mafias either carve out territories or fight to the death like political parties in national elections. You see an unwillgness to tolerate as weakness while I see it as strength. But strength of character has to be based on truth for one to be a winner. You may say you don't identify with the weak but you are weak. By weakness I mean you cannot call the shots and have to live in submission to undignified conditions that you tolerate. I am weak too because I also have to live in an undignified way. It irks me each time I go through immigration on my travels. I feel like a criminal getting processed at check points as I transfer from one prison to another. It's unfortunate but necessary because we humans are potential criminals. A simple mind is one that cannot process complex ideas. Your concept of duality is simplistic. A simple mind is meant for a simple life swinging about in the forest or living out your time in a nursing home. Ideally, human life should be simple and meant to be simple. But we live in a complex world. Just because they did not submit doesn't mean they were not flawed. Do you believe that might is right? The High Priests and Pharisees didn't submit to Jesus' teaching either and made him pay for it by nailing him to the cross. Was Jesus flawed? Come on, man. The Marshall Plan was an initiation of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. And the decision to dismantle Germany was reversed when everyone realized that without Germany, the reconstruction of Europe to counter Soviet domination of Europe was impossible. (Hitler saw that coming way before anyone did!) Anyway, we are off topic here. Directly? None. I don't believe in employee/employer relationship. I don't want Occupiers in my house. Apparently so. Do you think this mess of a world perplex anyone? 99% are struggling to survive, 50% living in abject poverty and endemic diseases. Poltical conflict everywhere. I pratice wu-wei and have no intention to sort you out. Cain got his way, didn't he? Anytime, anyone can step on your head and squish it in the mud and there is not a thing you can do about it, that is a strong person (doing, what I believe, the wrong thing). When the wrong people get to become strong, the weak suffers. This doesn't mean that the weak cannot be wrong also. He got pushed around and killed. Isn't that weak? I'm not talking about strength of character which Jesus certainly had. I cannot believe that a man that wise got clubbed by the foolish. There is something screwy about the story. Actually, I don't believe it other than the wise things Jesus said in the Gospels. If you got caught in an alley and two bruisers set upon you, are you weak if you get your head smashed in, ribcage crushed and you just let them pulverize you? Same here.

Ok then, K. I respect your wish to avoid confrontation. But keep thinking aloud. I need to listen in on your conscience even if I am not allowed to confront it. Please understand that confrontation should not be equated with conflict. Avoidance of conflict is wise. Avoidance of confrontation is cowardice, a form of corruption.