1. Long time ago in a conversation with an ex. She brought up the seemingly Western fascination (obsession?) with self improvement, longevity, life extension.1 Why couldn’t these people come to terms with their senescence and deaths?
To which my response went something like this:
All humans innately desire 3 things: We want more, we want better, and we want different. Human beings are like any living organism in that we desire to extend ourselves in
a) Space, and
b) Time.
The only difference is one of degree, not kind – human beings are clever enough to actually do that.
Animals do not know they will die.
They really do not. They have no concept of their impending mortality. They can not SEE their bodies failing, their limbs slowing, their eyes clouding with cataractic white. They see it happen to others but cannot imagine the same will happen to them.
Humans are unique in that we alone in the animal kingdom are cognisant of this. We imagine all too well the visceral terror of growing old, of becoming frail, of waking up in a bed of shit and piss. We know with absolute certainty that this sad state of affairs is what awaits us at the end of a life of struggle. So is it any wonder that we strive so vigorously to delay this? To prolong our youth, our strength, our beauty.
Perhaps it is good to come to terms with our mortality. It is healthy to not cling to things that have passed their time. But without this sense of indignation, this outrage at the unfairness of our short lives, we would have none of the medicines and life-preserving technologies we take for granted.
We no longer have to tolerate half our children dying of disease, of the flu, of a broken bone. We can (and some say should) reasonably expect to live out our God-given three score and ten years.
Some of us must continue to desire more, so that true progress might endure. That we will not fall into dogma and complacent superstition. The Faustian longing for eternity finds its satisfaction in creating the material conditions most hospitable to man’s flourishing.
But.
2. The folly of Faustian thought is that it idealizes chasing something to excess, to the near-exclusion of all other avenues of thought.
Man does not live by bread alone. As Faustian culture advances by creating ever larger oases of prosperity (clean water, food, houses, creature comforts), it simultaneously sows the seeds for its own implosion. This is because it is a totalizing set of beliefs and assumptions.
If Faustian civilization is identified with relentless striving and seeking after infinity, Chinese and therefore Taoist civilization is identified with the principle of reasonableness. Lin Yutang said something to that effect.
There is a divine ecstasy and power in the Faustian view of life. Think of Dionysian saints and holy madmen who burned through their life essence to bring us brilliant visions and wisdom from the peaks. The outriders of human experience who endured the fire and went beyond the gates of death to expand the boundaries of what can be said, attempted, done. If you are reading this, you enjoy a high level of comfort because the sacrifices of these types gave up their lives to build this world.
Taoist thought affirms a spirit of reasonableness; the benevolent or enlightened man is one who resolutely cleaves to a middle path. All forms of radicalism, faith, and ideology are ipso facto suspicious to the Chinese mind because they frequently lead to abandonment of restraint. Naturally, due to this it is unusual in the Chinese culture to find men and women who are willing to break with convention and cultural norms. Reader, do not be so quick to jump to conclusions… it is for this reason that Chinese civilization has existed in continuous form for nearly 5,000 years.
But how can it be that genuine progress is attempted if all there is, is conservation of tradition? Preservation of rites? Ancestor worship is a death-cult that immortalizes only old triumphs – a culture steeped in it can only know to venerate the past. This is a stagnant culture, and explains why even though Chinese were among the first to achieve a high level of civilization, they never progressed beyond a feudal agrarian society.
The way forward for my brothers and sisters from this continent is a fusion of both worldviews.
Integration and synthesis of the Taoist and the Faustian.
The might of the steppes and the shrewdness of the city
The enjoyment of the Eternal Now alloyed with nostalgia for infinity.
The future belongs to those who walk that fine line between stasis and excess.
3. A reason I keep returning to the Tao Te Ching is that it holds new lessons every year. Only in the last few months have I achieved an understanding of Wu-wei that better approaches Reality.
Most misunderstand Wu-wei as Non-Action, thus an excuse to be passive, or lazy.
I used to suffer from this delusion, thinking that my inaction, my lack of trying, had a sound philosophical basis. This was sadly not true! It was completely erroneous understanding, and I wasted years of my life wandering in self-contented haze because of this.
Wu-wei is better understood as non-forcing. Effortless Action.
Effortless Action, in which Effort does not mean a lack of intensity and exertion, but a state of pushback from the cosmos against the object of your strivings? When it is the right time and place for the right action, the path will open. All resistance will melt and fall away. For what is resistance and friction but a sign that you are doing something you should not be doing?
When you act in accordance with the Way and from your deepest true essence, things just happen even before you begin to look in their direction.
This is God.
This is Dharma.
This is the Way.
I am in alignment right now and so.
The right things just keep finding me at the right time.
Nothing is forced to happen, yet everything is completed the way it should.
I just keep moving forward and let things happen the way they will.
The notion of self-improvement/growth and continual self-development as virtue or moral good IS a predominantly Western/European invention… There are a number of cultural, sociological and cultural reasons for this but one of the main reasons in the present author’s opinion is that China and India never produced a Goethe or Nietzsche. Modern self-improvement is rooted in fundamentally Faustian/Nietzschean soil and could not arise otherwise.
This is phenomenal! Thrilled to see you have your own substack. Great name by the way. Here is to the barbarian virtues!