I think you missed the point DCP. The last line isn’t a quip or an observation. It’s a reminder to be humble and know that no matter how far you’ve come, you’re still human, and that you can still go further. No one is perfect, but that’s no reason not to strive for perfection.
I read the last line as a reminder to let go. You will never be all of those things all the time, so don’t try to will yourself to do so.
It seems like sometimes theres a point where striving harder – at least in the conventional sense, involving your will – doesn’t help you get where you want to go.
There’s this little quip that goes something like:
Q- Well, so what am I supposed to do now?
A- You do not do.
More eloquently stated:
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.
“A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance.”
It could mean that no one with a fixed self can be so receptive and accepting. If you have a fixed idea of yourself, you have fixed aims and desires and will not stand to have them denied. And you cannot learn from everyone if you have fixed standards: you will judge others and therefore see only your own standards reflected, rather than the other as he really is.
Longing to ‘be somebody’ and define or fulfil oneself is a barricade to wisdom and virtue. This is why the lives of many philosophers belie their words. Schopenhauer was full of talk about the illusion of the self with its petty wants, yet he lived the petty and selfish life of a bourgeois political reactionary; something of a hedonistic survivalist.
Nobody I know at least.
The stereotypical image of a buddhist monk comes to mind, but do you think there are people who fit the above criteria?
I like the third line. I think a whole chapter in econ was dedicated to the idea of “endless wants” but that line really hits home.
I think you missed the point DCP. The last line isn’t a quip or an observation. It’s a reminder to be humble and know that no matter how far you’ve come, you’re still human, and that you can still go further. No one is perfect, but that’s no reason not to strive for perfection.
I read the last line as a reminder to let go. You will never be all of those things all the time, so don’t try to will yourself to do so.
It seems like sometimes theres a point where striving harder – at least in the conventional sense, involving your will – doesn’t help you get where you want to go.
There’s this little quip that goes something like:
Q- Well, so what am I supposed to do now?
A- You do not do.
More eloquently stated:
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.
“A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance.”
Are you reading malcolm gladwell?
well,
the new site look dosent show text in windows propertyl it is all mashed up , you best be fixin’ to do somthing bout that
It could mean that no one with a fixed self can be so receptive and accepting. If you have a fixed idea of yourself, you have fixed aims and desires and will not stand to have them denied. And you cannot learn from everyone if you have fixed standards: you will judge others and therefore see only your own standards reflected, rather than the other as he really is.
Longing to ‘be somebody’ and define or fulfil oneself is a barricade to wisdom and virtue. This is why the lives of many philosophers belie their words. Schopenhauer was full of talk about the illusion of the self with its petty wants, yet he lived the petty and selfish life of a bourgeois political reactionary; something of a hedonistic survivalist.