You win some, you lose some, but I prefer to win them all.

The dictator and the useful idiot

Keep before you the swift onset of oblivion, and the abysses of eternity before us and behind; mark how hollow are the echoes of applause, how fickle and undiscerning the judgements of professed admirers, and how puny the arena of human fame. For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of our own habitation but a minute corner in it; and how many are therein who will praise you, and what sort of men are they?

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV.3

I’m reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations when my son, referring to the cover photo above the author’s name, says, “Who’s that? Zeus?”

“No,” I say.

“Caesar?”

“No. It’s Marcus Aurelius.”

“Hmmm. That seemed too obvious.”

On second thought, we have a family member who perceives things that cannot be seen, so #7 may be more indicative of mental illness than enlightenment . . .

This is the Way for men who want to learn my strategy:

1. Do not think dishonestly.
2. The Way is in training.
3. Become acquainted with every art.
4. Know the Ways of all professions.
5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
6. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.
7. Perceive those things that cannot be seen.
8. Pay attention even to trifles.
9. Do nothing which is of no use.

— Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

UPDATE: One of my son’s friends has a hamster named Miyamoto Musashi. His book says he’s very famous in Japan, but then it would say that.

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.

Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.

— Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.

 

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

 

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

 

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

 

Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

 

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him.

 

The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.

 

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

 

A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

At the time the book [Brave New World] was written this idea, that human beings are given free will in order to choose between insanity on the one hand and lunacy on the other, was one that I found amusing and regarded as quite possibly true.

— Aldous Huxley

Reserve your judgments and words
And you maintain your influence;
Speak your mind and take positions
And nothing can save you.

— Tao Te Ching; 52. Clarity

Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So ritual enthralls generation after generation.

Harmony does not care for harmony, and so is naturally attained;
But ritual is intent upon harmony, and so can not attain it.

Harmony neither acts nor reasons;
Love acts, but without reason;
Justice acts to serve reason;
But ritual acts to enforce reason.

When the Way is lost, there remains harmony;
When harmony is lost, there remains love;
When love is lost, there remains justice;
But when justice is lost, there remains ritual.

Ritual is the end of compassion and honesty,
The beginning of confusion;
Belief is a colorful hope or fear,
The beginning of folly.

The sage goes by harmony, not by hope;
He dwells in the fruit, not the flower;
He accepts substance, and ignores abstraction.

— Tao Te Ching; 38. Ritual

. . . it is utterly trivial to create a case (and to “prove” it, too) that pretty much anybody is pretty much to blame for pretty much anything. Since a causal link can readily be drawn from either of us to anything in our lives, we simply stipulate our own blame. This saves effort, reduces friction, disinvites defensiveness and promotes remediation. Of course I cause my own troubles. . . . If I am not the prime cause of my own circumstances, I am doomed to live in a victim’s world. That would suck so bad that I prefer personal accountability.

— Jim McCarthy

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.

“Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”

At these words Banzan became enlightened.

— Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Yang never drops its sword until death has made its decision who to take. Yin hopes that the other guy will die of a heart attack while he’s stabbing you.

— Stanley Bing, Sun Tzu Was a Sissy