Regarding BENEVOLENCE
as the source of kindness,
RIGHTEOUSNESS as the source
of the distinction between right and wrong,
PROPRIETY as the rule of conduct,
MUSIC as the pattern of harmony,
and merging SYMPATHY with FAIRNESS

—these are the characteristics of the superior man/woman.

Zhuangzi trans. by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 33 Under the Heaven

Join me in a fantasy, an experiment of the mind. Picture if you will a universe, a place and a time where and when foundational principles are the conditions described by the capitalized terms, rendered in shades of various colors.

First of all an environment predominates in essence that’s benevolent. Gentleness is rewarded, to say it differently. Then consider the environment to be calibrated just so that life is supported, all kinds of life from the amoeba to the two-legged symbol using mammal. Right and wrong are dynamical, linked to life. Additionally consider if you will a “higher” mammal, a species sensitive to the fact of environmental sharing, such that “openness” is the standard of conduct between cultures. But wait, this gets even better!

Music is recognized as a ritual meriting respect, the paradigm of harmony, the example of what is possible. Summerfest in Milwaukee anyone?

And the grand wrap-up proposal: empathic awareness, – that is a practiced embodied adaptation to surrounding circumstances merged with an intention to be fair is recommended.

Thus a viewpoint of the universe is described within which a man and a woman can find him or herself, can become him or herself. Besides all is a matter of interpretation.

I have two tickets to Paradise. Join me anyone!

What tune do you think is consonant with our thought experiment? I suggest this by Belinda Carlyle, Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

Make no mistake, at present it seems that we are light years away from the course which Zhuangzi advocates. This from the New York Times of today. President Trump was watching a U.F.C. fight in Miami while the peace negotiations with Iran collapsed.