Vertigo
v. 64
It’s easy to keep hold of what hasn’t stirred,
easy to plan what hasn’t occurred.
It’s easy to shatter delicate things,
easy to scatter little things.
Do things before they happen.
Get them straight before they get mixed up.
The tree you can’t reach your arms around
grew from a tiny seedling.
The nine-story tower rises
from a heap of clay.
The ten-thousand-mile journey
begins beneath your foot.
Do, and do wrong;
Hold on, and lose.
Not doing, the wise soul
doesn’t do it wrong,
and not holding on,
doesn’t lose it.
(In all their undertakings,
it’s just as they’re finished
that people go wrong.
Mind the end as the beginning,
then it won’t go wrong.)
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Usula K. LeGuin
These verses are uncommon sense.
We Americans are children of the Enlightenment, – our pride rests in reason, to ” just figure it out” as we keep telling ourselves… It seems that “reason” our bias for taking action becomes a bite-in-the-ass. The circle jerk of self-congratulation, of being “the best ever” amounts to having ignored problems brought upon ourselves by our reason, by an actively preferred way of life. I mean the drought, the heat domes and wild fires, the economy with a dearth of entry level work transitioning to high value work (with a future). I mean the tsunami of advertising, massaging the desire of the consumer to purchase medicine show remedies, and shoddy objects. Americans are acclimated to jiving pitch-men. Shall we include a government (three branches assumed sacred) and a bureaucracy out of touch with a desperately divided citizenry? A government overdue for a remodeling?
This list could be built out, but I will stop here.
In summary, we couldn’t say “no”, didn’t regulate anything that might reduce “profits” for anyone.
Suddenly an image from the original Star Wars film comes to mind. You know the final scene of the great battle. I remember the awe(ful) inspiring scene of a damaged tie fighter spinning out of control into the dark of space.
That’s us my friend.
2 thoughts on “Vertigo”
So what exactly is reason, my friend? It seems as if we have gone around and around about language and the inexactness and limitations of words. In the case you mention above, are the prognosticators of “reason” those who give excuses for their actions as in, “I’ll give you five reasons why I’m correct?” Or does it mean thinking through a problem using rational thought, or “reasoning?” I like to think of reason as a way of pragmatically assessing an issue, taking into account the entirety of both past history and potential outcome. If this were the case, reason would allow us to build “reasonable” ways of dealing with the existential problems we currently face. Reason, if we imbue the meaning of the word to encompass survival and creative processes, can help us move forward towards a brighter future. On the other hand if we take it in the context of making excuses for egregious behavior, we will walk down the path of no return.
Most of the time, almost everyone believes they are reasonable, speaking reasonably, desiring a reasonable result. As you intimate reason is complex and requires a quotient of good will, so to risk being partially wrong. I am a fan of reason, and recognize that reason is entangled with a culture, a style of upbringing, the luck or lack thereof of food, shelter, good health, and safety. Often there’s sufficient overlap in the working of one’s reasoning faculties and that of another individual, to come to agreement sufficient to work together. That is not to be taken for granted however. On occasion an enemy intends one’s erasure, all the while claiming to be “reasonable”.