by Ethan Johnson
December 31, 2007

Various thoughts and linked items to close out the year:

by Ethan Johnson
December 24, 2007

Every so often, I'll click a link at random, and wonder why I don't engage in random link-clicking more often. Case in point: Below the Eight. Read the blog to learn the story behind the name. Anyway, the author wrote out a list of things that she doesn't "get", and pretty much nailed something that has nagged at me here and there, as one of the unwashed masses:

by Ethan Johnson
December 23, 2007

Conventional wisdom holds that if one focuses on a particular thing, one will start to see more of that thing. For example, if one decides to buy a new car, and determines which kind, suddenly more of that kind of car are seen in traffic. Or suddenly there is a new aggressive advertising campaign devoted to that vehicle. Conventional wisdom strikes again, as I have been mulling over certain topics in advance of forthcoming articles, and as luck would have it, I'm finding an abundance of supporting material. Case in point:

by Ethan Johnson
December 12, 2007

In its present form, new discoveries aside, the Tao Te Ching sets the tone for the larger body of work in its famed opening lines:

The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way;
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.

The insistence of some that they can divine what the Tao "wants" has completely and utterly missed the point of these opening lines, let alone the remainder of the source material.

by Ethan Johnson
December 5, 2007

I am passing along the following anecdote as something of a teaching moment. Not just for the casual reader, who shall shortly be enlightened, but for myself, who apparently needed the lesson.

by Ethan Johnson
December 3, 2007

CAVEAT: I am unsure that anyone can ever really "understand" the Tao, but I have some thoughts on the body of work just the same. This is one article in an occasional series, to be authored in my leisure.

No sooner did I write my most recent heartwarming holiday hit, when I got something of a taste of my own medicine when I retired to my reading corner to read the introduction to the copy (translation) of the Tao Te Ching that I most prefer. I was under the erroneous impression that the work was written solely by Lao Tzu. We are meant to think so, similar to the way that Plato attributed most things to Socrates. Thus, the ebb and flow of the work ranges from minimal and poetic to more substantial paragraphs (insofar as Romanized punctuation applies to ancient Chinese). Recent discoveries have shed new light on who wrote the various tracts, how, and when. I will review and absorb the material as it becomes available to me.

by Ethan Johnson
December 2, 2007

I have been stewing on this for some time, and have opted to empty out my thoughts here for further examination. With limited exceptions, I take a dim view of "new" translations of ancient texts, and especially so for re-interpretations (Ralph Alan Dale's treatment of the Tao Te Ching comes immediately to mind). For translations (defined as someone going over the texts of the source language and translating it into say, English), layers of translation separates us further and further from whatever the original material actually said. For re-interpretations (defined as someone reviewing either the source material, or a popular translation of same and giving his or her own "spin" to it), layers of semantics and subjective opinion take us further and further from whatever the original material actually meant.

by Ethan Johnson
November 26, 2007

Earlier this year, I wrote about Breatharianism:

Breatharian thought (as I am defining it here) is rooted deeply in "keeping up appearances", and is identifiable either through covert activities to create a specific impression, or overt actions that oppose the stated ideal. But this differs from mere hypocrisy in that the hypocrite is loathed because he or she doesn't even bother to act in the manner that he or she claims to be the ideal, such as the finger-wagging moralist who snorts cocaine and enjoys horse porn. Hypocrisy in the business sense would be declaring "keeping jobs safe at home" to be the ideal while outsourcing 99% of the company's operations overseas. Breatharianism in the business sense would be to claim that sole entrepreneurship is the key to success, only to reveal that a virtual army of outsourced labor/resources was pressed into service to keep the business afloat.

Two items have recently entered the national bloodstream that speak to the above. One is a book, and another a movie (based on a book). I will try to keep "spoilers" to a minimum, however if you plan to read Better Off by Eric Brende or see Into the Wild at the movies, you may want to skip this article altogether but couch the above quoted text in the back of your mind somewhere.