Dao

While such paradoxical statements are commonly associated with Eastern philosophy, plenty such are to be found in Western (or Western-familiar) writings, which is why we have a Scary Greek Word™ (homoiousia anathema! schism dogma catalepsis ouzo) for it in the first place. I fear a lot of people are simply ignorant of simple rhetorical devices and said writings, and so inundated in a world run on deductive logic (without which a machine will not operate) that they are too ready to accept as a contradiction things that are dialectical or inductive in nature (without which you probably should not decide what to put in a machine or how). But there are worse errors in thought than that, probably more commonly running in the opposite direction.

Interesting to reflect that the Stoics, more in the rationalist camp than Laozi, talked much of shifting one’s desire/inclination (orexis) to things that are virtuous, in harmony with nature, for the common good, limited to what is within your power only (which they stressed is pretty much just your thinking but gives you a handle on your habits or accepting a situation), and so forth to have the greatest mastery of the world possible and (their idea of) happiness (which modern students note that their old rivals the Epicureans/hedonists came to something similar from the opposite angle). There are of course differences between Stoicism and Zen and Dao, even as there are some differences in attitudes between Laozi and Zhuangzi. For instance, Stoics didn’t hesitate to put names on a limited number of ideas they thought should be really solid, even as Aristotle or Plato might have liked to see proper names on basically everything; all those really wanted to see things “as they are” but had different ideas of what that means. I do want to one day re-read certain many of these authors from a different mindset than I had the first time around being forced to look at selected excerpts in high school (and throw in a first look at Mozi, who I was taught lumped in with the Daoists but looking into it now, that seems to have been quite inapt), and look afresh at the many thinkers I may never have the time for. On an aside, I will say this much: even reading the preface of Epictetus’ Discourses by his student was rather touching and in the spirit of the text itself, which is not what you expect from the (popular and self-) caricature of the Stoic as someone who does not feel.

I don’t really know why I look into philosophy at the level I do without having a serious knack for it. A lazy thinker could chalk it up to my direct descent from a prominent Neo-Confucian fundamentalist. I, however, being no less lazy a thinker mind you, view it as a thing I do to procrastinate. If I catch the drift of Zhuangzi and sometimes the Stoic way of thinking, though, there is often an (explicit) usefulness in (apparent) uselessness, if only you are willing and able to find it. After all, the Stoa (porch) in ancient Athens was also kinda just a place these guys hung out to shoot the breeze. Philosophy often comes to the theme that it is itself both a waste of time and one of the most important things you can ever do; this is no contradiction, but as economists had to rediscover and clarify the concept as “marginal utility”, sometimes you have enough of something and sometimes you don’t, changing the value drastically.

In short: what an interesting passage to return to, at a time like this.