Friday, December 30

No Mistakes?

Someone asked T'ou-tzu, "How is it when there is no mistake moment to moment?"

T'ou-tzu said, "Bragging."

From "The Pocket Zen Reader," edited by Thomas Cleary, 1999.

Wednesday, December 28

Humble Confidence

If there is no self, who is there to be humble? My friend, you are putting too much pride in this security net of yours.

Besides, by using 'humble' in the sense that one is meek or modest in one's abilities, the Buddha would be agreeing with me. I agree completely that one should be on the careful side in their confidence of abilities. They should never exceed their position, and as I attempted to explain with the meassured trust account, the importance of the situation should determine how much lower a level of ability thier trust should be placed. However, one should not arbitrarily set their confidence far below their skill level. If so, they will never test the full potential of their skill and, likewise, never advance their skill through practice. To be meek in the position one takes towards their abilities may cause the individual to hesitate or fail to act in a situation in which they had to power to do good for others. As such, I believe the Buddha would agree that one should be humble in that they attempt to retain a level of confidence as close as possible to their abilities without ever exceeding them. Further, that confidence should only be utilized as it relates to the performance of those abilities; a buddhist does not boast, unless boasting simply to demostrate a point. Consider the example below;

As the Buddha was in audience he rebuked one of his disciples. Another of his disciples later questioned whether a true Buddha would have embarrassed a student in front of so many individuals. The Buddha replied that a true Buddha may eat meat, have sexual intercourse, steal another's food, or even kill a man if he is showing the Way.

Moral of the story; I'm an amazing lay.


Post Scripts...

Monday, December 19

Confidently Arrogant

There's a thin line between confidence and arrogance. In fact, in my opinion, the line is so razor thin that it has cut the ability to be confident out of our society. You may just attribute what follows as me being arrogant, but know this; if so, aren't you agreeing with me?

It all started with a conversation an old friend of mine and I had over a couple drinks tonight. Both she and I are often times accused of being arrogant. While she affirmed the same, let me say here that I fully embrace my arrogance. I'm okay with it. I'd go as far to say I think it's a good thing. In example:

I'm incredibly brilliant. There. I've said it. I might not know about a lot of things -- politics, pop-culture, or where the G-spot is -- but that's not to say I couldn't know. To elaborate, consider what some people describe as the difference between intelligence and wisdom (note: as arrogant as I am, I am not necessarily describing myself as "wise"): Intelligence can be taught, facts can be learned, and degrees can be awarded while wisdom is the ability to do something with that intelligence, those facts, and...well...a degree isn't really worth shit anyways. But, for me, part of my brilliance lies with the understanding of where to find those facts and ideas and concepts. Then the major part comes in lifting them off the page and literally floating them around in the Ether while I play with them, break them apart, or recombine them to create new or better concepts, or at least find out how they're faulted.

So what's wrong with stating that? I know it's a talent of mine that isn't shared by everyone. With the exception of making a point in this post, I don't go around expounding upon my genius to everyone. But I don't hide it just to be considered humble, either. I'm simply confident in my cognitive capacities and utilize them when appropriate. But I'm also confident in the fact that I lack certain abilities. I know I'm tone deaf, I know I have two left feet, I know I am amazingly inept at people skills, I know I suck at expressing my emotions, and I know I have trouble finding the G-spot. I'm confident in these failures. Doesn't mean I won't eventually dance the two-step or perfectly perform the "come hither" motion two inches up the abdominal wall, but I'm confident that, at this point, I stumble with both.

So where's the arrogance come in? Not everyone is confident in both their abilities and lack of abilities.* While I'd imagine quite a large portion is confident in the former, it is the lack of confidence in the latter that results in "confidence" being impossible in our society. I'm arguing that what I consider confidence isn't often seen as confidence, but arrogance. When I'm in a situation in which I (confidently) lack a certain talent while another (confidently) excels in that talent, I see it as such. That's because my confidence in my lacking some particular talent keeps me from feeling intimidated or lessened by the display. But in a situation where one person is not confident in lacking a talent, I suspect they see another's confidence as threatening or gloating of their abilities; in essence, arrogance. While I agree there is such a thing as over-confidence, I don't think pure, measured confidence should be seen like this. By measured confidence I mean a level of trust in one's abilities that is rational given the importance of the situation. I am the first one to admit and, if necessary, rebuke myself when my brilliance (or any other ability I put trust in) goes awry. But, as I take full responsibility for when I'm wrong, I'm not convinced there's anything inappropriate with taking full responsibility when I'm right, as well. And, as such, I'm ok being "confident" in conversations with my good friends and "arrogant" in the majority of other conversations.

* Second-order confidence, or having confidence in what one is confident in, appears to be innate in first-order confidence. However, as it is not a main premise of this argument, I allow that it may be disputed.


Post Scripts...

Wednesday, December 14

The Open Road

Time for another long haul. I really don't mind these drives at all, though I imagine people always tend to find me a bit more insane on the other side of them. Tomorrow night I head out on a 16 hour drive from DeKalb, IL to Mobile, AL. I'll leave town around 6 or 7 so that I can get into Mobile around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I know that doesn't add up, but figure in the fueling and the few naps along the way (of which, I try to make a habit of getting off the road prior to taking), and it'll should be a decent haul. The one time I made a 16 hour haul it was fleeing from Ivan, which I had to postpone my departure to clear out Monroe, so that meant I merged into the stand-still that is I-10. Took me 6 hours to get from Claiborne and I-10 to the I-55 junction. Seeing as I left at 2 in the afternoon, I wasn't home till 7 the next morning, driving straight thru. Getting home at day break was nice. I had to stop and see someone once I got into Springfield, but then I was able to sleep during the morning hours. I am a little worried, not of driving thru the night, but of driving between 8am and noon Friday morning. Anyways, I'll make it there one way or another, and I'm sure I'll be good to go for a gathering of old friends come Friday evening.

After those few days in Mobile, I'll be home for a bit to make up for missed time with the family. As such, once I'm home I'll only have dial-up, and I hate trying to do blogger through dial-up. I might hit up the coffee shop once or twice to update this, along with other things, but don't be expected much out of me the next few weeks.

The good news is I've got a stack of books waiting for me. This includes
Till We Have Faces by Lewis, finishing up One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez, Pale Fire by Nabakov, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, just for kicks, and who knows what else I'll throw in. Maybe some Adams if I pick up The Religion War. So, hopefully with some fuel for my thoughts, I'll come back with some decent posts.

I know it's been awhile since I gave anything worth reading. Two reasons for this; 1) I'd been extremely busy the past month or so academically, leaving me with little time to write anything of substance on here and 2) I'd been extremely busy the past month or so academically, leaving me with little to write that wasn't full of jargon or too existentially saturated for even those far past the tipping point to enjoy. But, hopefully with some "light" reading, I can come back with something thought provoking. Till then, Namaste' to all my friends. And to my enemies, Namaste'.

Post Scripts...

Tuesday, December 13

Established Credit

The apprehension of the source of this undifferentiated yet everywhere particularized substratum of being is rendered frustrate by the very organs through which the apprehension must be accomplished. The forms of sensibility and the categories of human thought, which are themselves manifestations of this power, so confine the mind that it is normally impossible not only to see, but even to conceive, beyond the colorful, fluid, infinitely various and bewildering phenomenal spectacle.

-The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell

A couple years back, Deek loaned me a copy of this book. True, I will attempt to return it to him when I see him this weekend at the wedding, but regardless, it just adds to the credit I give to this man's opinions. He recently started up his own blog, Global Century. For all that Divergent World lacks direction, Deek actually has a concept of deep political insight that is very engaging. The link to his blog will remain on the sidebar to the right, but just wanted to give him credit here.

Also, the title of this post is linked to another good friend of mine who's credit has long been established in my book. ASH has created a blog, again with the type of direction I can only aspire to, for first-time or start-up investors. I'll admit, I'm completely lost when it comes to a lot of financial stuff. Don't get me wrong, I understand the concepts, the numbers, the facts about Roth's and expense ratio's, but I just don't have that passionate fuel that leads to what I consider intellegence in an area. ASH does. His blog will also be linked from the sidebar to the right, but wanted to draw your attention to it here.


Post Scripts...

Saturday, December 10

Analogy Whore

Thank you, Deek, for that fitting analogy. Very creative use of the simile. Afterall, it's not everyday you come across a civil war, gangrenous, amputated limb analogy. But no worries, I still think very highly of your intellegence, regardless.

The title of this post links directly to a "Save Tulane Engineering" blog which is both in contact with the Times Picayune and has a great format for e-mailing your respective Dean or Scott Cowen. There is also an online petition, for whatever that's worth (I'm number 938). And, those friends not affiliated with Tulane are more that free to voice their concerns over how Tulane's lack of engineering will effect the rebuilding of New Orleans (looking at MEF, here).

Post Scripts...

Friday, December 9

Worse than Fatal

During the days that wars were interesting, the days when you were close enough to stare into the soul of your enemy before watching it slowly burn away, there were injuries worse than death. Given, the HMO's of the time didn't exactly treat the symptoms of bacterial infections, but the type of blows I'm talking about crushed both your collar bone and your honor.

In the middle of a field, where the sound of the war drums kept perfect time with the clash of shields, death was nearly on par with life. But when your opponent used 6 inches above the hilt of his blade to crush your shoulder, two things occurred. The first is that, naturally, you were crippled. You cannot hold up your shield arm much less balance yourself for a kill stroke with half your body deadened. The second, and perhaps worse thing, is that you are still alive. Because, unlike our modern times, the price of one human life was so very high, two of your buddies would be required to haul your sorry ass out of the fray. Thus, in a battle were every man counts, your singular opponent has just removed 3 of his enemy's numbers in a single, non-fatal blow.

The moral of the story is that, though Tulane has not killed themselves, they've done something far worse.

Post Scripts...

Wednesday, December 7

Lucubrating

"It is beautiful to be a seeker. But seekers should one day become finders, elders, teachers. Why postpone that?"
--Lama Surya Das


It's my experience that philosophers are never content with their work. Some fields have right or wrong answers, and it's criticized that philosophy doesn't. I disagree. I think there is a right answer. The problem lies in the question. In many other fields, the right tools already exist to get from the problem to the solution. There are equations, axioms, procedures...but in philosophy, the tools we have to use are such that they just make the question a better question. And, maybe this is just my opinion, but the better the question, the deeper the question. And, to a point, the deeper the question the harder the answer. So by making progress in our writing, we are, in effect, making the answer harder.

But I said the deeper the question the harder the answer, to a point. That point comes with simplicity. The hours I toll away late into the night are not to find the meaning of life or the definition of the Good. No, I'm searching simplest answer there is; God. And that's why I'm never content.

Post Scripts...