Ep. 341 Supplemental: Zhuangzi for Closereads Evergreen Network Launch

0:06 Mark: Hey everybody. That mysterious music tells you that something atypical is going on with this week's Partially Examined Life release. Let me lay out the facts for you. Partially Examined Life episode 341 is just a one parter, a one hour long thing. We asked Karyn, do you want to come for two hours or do you want to come for just one hour? She said, just one hour. In that case, we typically record the second hour without the big academic guest. And we did that, but we did it on a different day and we wanted to talk more. So episode 342 will be the normal two hour thing.

So that leaves a little gap, a place for a semi foreign element to enter the picture and add something to your episode 341 experience. And hey ho. We happen to be doing the worldwide public release of the Close Reads Philosophy with Mark and Wes feed on the Evergreen Podcast Network. Close Reads was something that Wes and I created last summer because we wanted to just read line by line through various texts and really let you experience with us this effort to comprehend what is being said. We hope this will supplement the kind of thing we do in Partially Examined Life.

Wes and I have been enjoying it a lot and we wanted to make this more widely available. And so hoorah we. We have now licensed close reads philosophy.com so that URL should have the links to subscribe directly to that podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you want to listen to it. Right now, what you're about to hear is me pulling Wes into this Zhuangzi experience since he had decided to take a vacation for this whole reading. And I think this will help you to understand some of what we're talking about in episode 341 without stepping on the toes of anything that you're going to Hear in episode 342.

Plus, this is just a fun text and the more that you can hear of it line by line, the more you'll like it, I think. So here to buy us pel guys a little more reading time for our future episodes is, let's say the spiritual sequel to episode 341. And I hope it motivates you to go subscribe directly to Close Reads. You actually have to go over there to sign up. It is absolutely free to do so. It's that Close Reads Philosophy. This is Close Reads, a philosophy podcast with Mark and Wes.

2:27 Wes: I'm Wes Alwan.

2:28 Mark: And I'm Mark Linsenmayer. We're gonna read Zhuangzi, the Taoist philosopher, chapter 19, which was something that was officially assigned in the Partially examined life episode 341 that covers chapters four, five and 19. But we really just covered four and five. And our guest, Karyn Lai, had a few things to say about 19 that she had suggested. This is actually also a chapter that we had for our Partially examined life episode 12 many years ago. So, Wes, you have read this.

2:57 Wes: Ah, okay.

2:59 Mark: Though that was 2009, so I wouldn't expect a lot to still be there. But we did together the Daodejing not that long ago. So you basically remember what Taoism is, right?

3:12 Wes: So just chilling out, right? Just chill out.

3:16 Mark: Well, let's see. Because this chapter 19 is called Fathoming Life. This is a PDF, page 188 in the text. Text page 149 in the. The translator is. It is Brook Ziporyn. That is not an easy name to remember, but it is a great translation. Please start us off, Wes, unless you have some.

3:38 Wes: Nope.

3:39 Mark: Okay.

3:40 Wes: Chapter 19, Fathoming Life. Those who fathom the real character of life in us do not labor themselves over the aspects of life that deliberate activity can do nothing about. Those who fathom the real character of fate do not labor themselves over what understanding cannot alter. Although nourishing the body requires external things, some fail to nourish their bodies even with more than enough things. Although the continuance of life requires that the body is not dismembered, some bodies lose the life in them even when still intact. When life comes, it cannot be refused, and when it departs, it cannot be detained.

How sad it is that the people of the world think that nourishing the body is enough to preserve the life in them. But in the final analysis, a nourished body is not sufficient for the preservation of this life. So what in the world could be really worth doing, though? Nothing is really worth doing. That's the answer. That's my answer. It is impossible not to do something or other. So our activity itself is simply one more thing that cannot be avoided. Correct. Nothing is worth doing is correct. That's the correct answer to life, the universe and everything.

5:01 Mark: We did some Islamic philosophy recently and just, oh, this is warmed over Stoicism. Well, of course, Zhuangzi did not read the Stoics. This is a little before the Stoics even, But I'm seeing a lot of parallels just in that. Well, what do you think? Any initial reactions to this, Wes?

5:25 Wes: Yeah, I can see what you're saying. Not laboring over what understanding cannot alter. So there's a Stoic Tinge to that.

5:34 Mark: Yep.

5:36 Wes: The idea that nothing is really worth doing does sound a lot like the Stoic idea that there is nothing out there in the world external to me that is good or bad in an absolute sense, even if it can be preferable or not preferable. That what's good and bad in the true sense can only be a matter of my character, whether I'm virtuous, whether I'm engaged in activity, accordance with virtue, which is to say, which is in the area, you know, this follows on Aristotle, which is what makes us happy. They're just taking Aristotelianism, Aristotelian virtue ethics to a kind of extreme, which I imagine is where he's going to go with this activity can't be avoided. So we're going to tell you what is really worth doing, which is not something external, but internal.

6:29 Mark: You might think that if nothing is really worth doing, then quietism. But hey, we got to do something or other. So our activity is something. So I. You know, in the Stoic language, that would mean. Well, the preferable can be right if you just even a mild inclination to do something or other. Or we have to choose a path, even though there is no path that is required by the types of creatures we are. There's no specific path. You know, and all this is, of course, in opposition to Confucianism or something which would be a flavor, according to this, of.

Of the serious man, the term that we often bring up from Simone de Beauvoir, where you take an ideal, you take a. A guide for life, a philosophy, and you put it above yourself, you're going to submit yourself to that, that that is the proper way of human being in the world, that we are fundamentally dependent. You know, this is a. Not essentially religious, but it certainly is compatible with religion that most religious folks in the sense are the. Are the serious man. But here's another way of being religious, which is not saying that there's a God or some standard or something that I have to devote myself to, but that you want to nourish yourself in some way.

Right. But it's not just enough to nourish. Although nourishing the body requires external things, some fail to nourish their bodies even with more than enough things, which is a. Sounds like a really weird translation thing.

8:04 Wes: Well, you could. You could overeat. I mean, overeating. I'm just speculating, obviously, but you know, people make themselves sick by eating too much. So even if there's plenty of overnourishment can be a problem as well.

8:19 Mark: It was just the syntax that was throwing me. In other words, your body could fail to be nourished even when you have more than enough. In other words, people are. So this sounds very stoic, that people are materialistic, they're focusing their energies on, I have to satisfy my bodily needs. And then when they're done with that, they think more of the same is desirable. And none of this is getting at, you know, the nourishment of the soul or something. That is the alternative.

8:45 Wes: Right? And that's the. Yeah, that's the second thing. Nourishing the body is not enough. So. So get your fitness plan in order, get your diet in order, don't overeat, and let's move on to the soul.

8:57 Mark: Yes, it is not nourishing. The body's to preserve the life in you.

9:02 Wes: You do crossfit in the morning. In the afternoon, you study how there's nothing really worth doing.

9:10 Mark: If we think that, you know, the Stoic or Platonic answer is stop worrying so much about the body, because the soul is infinitely more valuable. But here he says, but in the final analysis, a nourished body is not sufficient for the preservation of this life. Right. It's not going to actually let you live forever. So what in the world could really be worth doing? I mean, is it. Is it in the world? Like if he was a truly otherworldly philosopher? Well, there's something not in the world. You know, it's something that in your mystical self, in your dao, that's really worth doing.

But probably not. Probably this is just. We should read it as it. As it lies that, you know, what we want is eternal life, but we're not really going to get that. So a recalibration is in order is what I would say. Like, don't shoot for eternal life. But this seems to be saying that, you know, we are inherently shooting for eternal life and we can't have that. So therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we're in a predicament. Why don't you keep going, Wes?

10:17 Wes: But to liberate your body from always having to be doing something, there is nothing more effective than letting go of the world. When you let go of the world, you are free of entanglements. Free of entanglements. You are balanced and un. Tilting, balanced and untilting. You are reborn along with each presence that confronts you. With each such rebirth, you have done all that can be done. I like that phrase. Reborn along with each presence that confronts you.

10:49 Mark: Yeah, I mean, is that. I always associate stoicism with. I Have a set of values that are sort of. In fact, I. I see stoicism as a serious man philosophy. Right. I'm not sure if they would agree with that. But it does advise you to be free of external entanglements. And so thus you are balanced and until. That sounds very stoic about bouncing until you were reborn along with each presence that confronts you. Yeah, that seems new. That seems not stoic. I'm sorry if people are annoyed by my just using stoicism as the launching point here when clearly there's no historical reason to do so. But just because this is what we've been talking about in past episodes and allows me to try to make sense of this. Yes. Reborn with each present that confronts you. I mean, yes, this. This mental flexibility. Any thoughts about that?

11:43 Wes: So free of entanglements. We. We don't know exactly what that is, but as you've pointed out, it does sound stoic. It seems to mean that we've withdrawn some of our typical concern from the world. I guess we might think if this were stoic, we would think, okay, that means preferring your wife but not seeing her or any loved one as good in some absolute sense, and not losing your mind if she dies. Honey, I prefer you. But anyway, so if that's the case, if that's what that means, then the idea of being reborn with new presences that confront you. I mean, I suppose new presences could be new people, or maybe it's any new challenge.

12:35 Mark: Sure.

12:36 Wes: But this idea of rebirth is interesting because it seems to mean that you. Right. An entanglement. I think of this now as kind of like a formative influence. So to be balanced and untilting is to transcend one's formative influences. I don't have the hang ups involved with being entangled with my past, with what my parents have done to me, to use a more obvious example, but also just to being entangled with whatever life has done to me, whatever character it has formed in me. I could be reborn with each new presence in the sense of letting that presence be. Well, I don't know if we would want to say that presence that confronts me is letting that be the primary formative influence.

13:24 Mark: Yeah, I mean, you're balanced and un tilting, so you're certainly not letting every new presence just sweep you up into whatever it has going on. And now you're the serious man with regard. This would be the adventurer in Beauvoir's term, where you sort of alternate objects of seriousness such that ultimately you're not serious about any of them. Because you keep switching your. I mean, it certainly doesn't sound from the sentence that you're going to be monogamous. For instance, every new presence that comes before me, I can be freshly free of all encumbrances. Free love.

13:58 Wes: Yeah. I mean, I think this is. Yeah. To say that each. I think you're right. I mean, it's not. It's not well put to say that each presence is going to be a formative influence. This sounds more like this point of neutrality or being able to confront new phenomena without the prejudice of the theoretical apparatus. Right. So that's the way to put it theoretically, but practically, one might say with character traits. Does that make sense? So we come to new phenomenon on a theoretical level with the conceptual scheme, let's say, and then on a practical level with character. Both of those things constitute sorts of habits, our conceptual habits and then our habits of action. And it seems to me this recommends to us the policy of being able to transcend those things, at least at the practical level.

14:53 Mark: Yeah, I wonder whether. So the character and things like that are unconscious largely. Generally. What Daoism is complaining about is consciously trying to model yourself. And this is what I see the serious man thing is, and, and why I think stoicism falls prey to it as much as anything else is that you sort of come with a recipe that whenever I see new situation, I'm going to say, oh, what? Let me consult my rules. What should I do with regard to this? That. That is certainly not being born anew, if you are consciously doing that. But of course, the goal in Stoicism or Confucianism is to practice and practice and practice so that you don't actually have to think about these things consciously.

Your character is so formed, you are balanced and untilting because your character has been developed that way. And so with each new situation it can seem like you are. I'm not. I'm. I'm entirely open minded. I'm not bringing anything foreign to bear on the situation. But. But of course you're coming to it from a very centered place that's been determined perhaps in a very deliberate way by what you've called formative influences or you know, could be a. An ongoing practice, like, is that okay? Because certainly the Daoist seems to. I'm just thinking whether Daoism has exercises of the sort that like, oh, you're in a situation.

Are you getting angry about it? No, let's calm myself down. Let's. Let's try to empty my mind. Right. It seems that There are corresponding exercises, you know, even literal meditation for many Taoists.

16:33 Wes: Now you're making me think of Sartre and Heidegger. So consciousness is a nothingness for Sartre and for Heidegger, letting being disclose itself as opposed to coming to it with something distorting, I guess. And then in the Sartrean case, that cashes out practically in terms of not inhabiting some role in some bad faith way, like his role of being a waiter, for instance. So your spontaneity is undone by getting into these. So it's not even, you know, where for Aristotle, we're trying to craft our character in a way that is virtuous, but it still means having habits and being beholden to character. For the existentialist, seems like to some extent you want to transcend that. Having anything that you're doing to the point where you simply identify with the habit. Let's say I am the waiter, or I am this habit. I am that habit. You foreclose on freedom, maybe.

17:41 Mark: Yeah. We'd actually have to think or read something else about being a good, well grounded existentialist, because certainly the existentialist, like, you're responsible for creating your own character. So whatever kind of person you are, it is your fault. And you can always change direction. That doesn't mean you should always change direction or you should strive to have no character at all.

18:08 Wes: It makes no sense. Yeah. Most of what we do in life is a matter of procedural knowledge and unconscious habit. And then it has to be that way. We can't transcend that.

18:18 Mark: Obviously, if we want to say that there is some tricky path toward existential enlightenment, you know, of the kind that Beauvoir is laying out or. Or Camus putting it more simply of just being. Having the proper attitude towards the absurd. That sort of. Natively, we don't. We just are thrown into action and we don't sort of.

18:42 Wes: We.

18:42 Mark: We are the serious man.

18:43 Wes: We.

18:43 Mark: We let ourselves be dominated by our projects. And we need to, on the one hand, realize that these are ultimately silly, that there's nothing really worth doing, as we see in this text, but you got to do something. I. I think this sounds quite a lot like Camus.

19:03 Wes: Yeah. And then just thinking again about this whole. The fact that we need to be, for the most part, we're in character and we're acting out of habit, and we're just acting out our own character traits. And the question is whether we can transcend that sometimes at critical decision points, critical branches in our tree. Right. We're going to go into this future. Are we going to go into that future? And the existentialists, I think, would say yes, we can change that. And I think virtue ethicists of the Aristotelian or Stoic sort would say yes too, because we can re habituate ourselves and we can do something therapeutic so that the route to freedom for virtue ethicists is to engage in some sort of therapeutic activity.

And maybe it works this way for daos as well. If it involves meditation, for instance, you could see that as in the domain of the therapeutic and a way to be present right. With what's confronting you and simply get out of the routine that you're in to confront something new and to have a new possibility available to you.

20:17 Mark: Yes, this seems like the practical dilemma that is Daoism is that it's still a Dao, it's still a path, it's still a recipe, but it's a non recipe recipe. It's a. It's about preparing yourself to be ready for anything, to be really present in the moment, able to respond, etc. So how do you. How does that not feel like, you know, if the second it feels like you are suborning your will to some ideal, that you're being the serious man, then you're doing it wrong. What do you think about this last sentence? With each such rebirth, you have done all that can be done.

20:55 Wes: Yeah.

20:57 Mark: What else can you do?

20:57 Wes: And it sounds like, I mean, well, it sounds like it's demoting typical. What we would think of as typical activity. So we don't identify sitting in a trance or whatever. Being in a Zen state. Sorry to mix this up, but. Right. Being in a Zen state and having the world available to us, we might normally think of that as passive. When it sounds like that may be the only genuine form of activity here, which is not, you know, this is something we'll see in Aristotle as well. Right. Contemplation, ironically turns out to be the highest form of activity. So there's a bit of irony here, but we can kind of see what he's hinting at. Only you know. You already know all the answers because you've read this. I'm speculating.

21:45 Mark: Why then is it worthwhile to let go of your concerns and forget all about the life in you? Because when concerns are let go of, the body is no longer labored. When life is forgotten, the pure kernel of vitality remains undamaged. When the body's intact and the pure kernel of vitality restored, you're one with heaven. Heaven and earth are the parents of all things, when they come together, a substantial body is formed. When that disperses, a new beginning takes shape. With both body and the pure vitality intact, you can then convey yourself onward, making the kernel vitality still more concentrated and pure. You return to the source, thereby assisting in the operations of heaven.

22:24 Wes: Convey yourself onward.

22:27 Mark: Let's focus on the first couple sentences because those. That's before it gets weird. When you let go of your concerns, the body is no longer labored, right, That I was seeing this as sort of the lilies of the field kind of thing, that it. You stop just grubbing for it. You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need. You know that the. Your body will be. You'll be fine. Right? It's not just. It doesn't take that much effort to actually nourish yourself as opposed to over nourishing, nourishing yourself with too many luxuries, etc.

23:02 Wes: Was he talking about sex as well?

23:04 Mark: I don't know. I mean, certainly.

23:06 Wes: What are we talking about in the domain of sex concerns, you know, sensual or physical, you know, because nourishment could really be a matter of any desire, anything that we consider, you know, what falls in the domain of need and what doesn't we have. There's eating and sex and you know, there are social needs that need to be met or people will go crazy. I don't know what falls within the domain of the body here, but it could include. It could be pretty expansive.

23:34 Mark: Right? I don't think that the result here is supposed to be asceticism. It's supposed to be one of those, those cheats that we've seen in several of these philosophers of like, oh, once you have the virtue, just everybody's gonna flock to you. You're gonna get all the sex you want once you stop looking for the sex.

23:51 Wes: And this is absolutely true. When less you want it, the more you get.

23:57 Mark: When life is forgotten, the pure kernel of vitality remains undamaged. So yeah, figuring out what exactly that is, is that the kind of thing that's what we would all recognize as life? Or is this like the masses are all distracted with goofy things. It's only we elite, I mean the Stoics or whoever, that realize that all the outward stuff is all trash, that we recognize that there's a pure kernel, that there's a light of the soul, the pure kernel vitality or something. And so you might not value that, but that's because you're A fool. But I think, I think the Daoist is more saying everybody's going to recognize this. We're actually talking about life itself. You know, the thing that energizes all of us.

24:41 Wes: Yeah. What do people have when they have their pure kernel of vitality? They're engaged with doing things that they love and getting joy out of it. They're not weighed down by these rear guard types of actions. Whether it involves having to meet basic needs or for most of us, it would be more about status or things. Career, money. But also social relationships. Any of the things that people complain about that they don't have, obviously those can bog down vitality instead of just tapping into our own, you know, like being a child. Yeah, you forget about. Yeah, you forget about life and where you are in life and all that. So what does it mean, though, to be one? Why is that oneness with heaven?

25:32 Mark: I just see that as sort of one with your, your telos, your natural tendencies. You're not over programming yourself. You're not trying to rewrite the operating system of your brain. You're actually just going on with the way that nature has set you up. You are in tune with nature because you're behaving in a natural way. So the sort of a Rousseau thing here.

25:54 Wes: So when he says heaven and earth come together to make a substantial body, that sounds like soul and physical body coming together to make a human substantial form or just form and matter.

26:10 Mark: Sure.

26:10 Wes: Form and matter come together to make a substantial body. If it's substance in the same sense as Aristotle. Right. We think of that primarily as a living thing. When that disperses, what does that mean?

26:23 Mark: I mean, earlier he had said, when life comes, it cannot be refused, and when it departs, it cannot be detained. So I think this is a. Don't be afraid of death. You are really part of the flow of nature. Don't identify so much. Don't focus your circle of concern so tightly on the one small biological blip that is you. It's okay if your substantial body, or any substantial body, you know, things come and things go.

26:50 Wes: Okay, so now I understand what he means by convey yourself onward and return to the source. Assist in the operations of heaven. So we get a job when we go to heaven.

27:01 Mark: Right.

27:02 Wes: I mean, when you're part of our operations department now, I mean, presumably you

27:07 Mark: need your body and your pure vitality intact to convey yourself as a single individual onward. So it's not saying. I don't think it's saying the, the kernel of vitality is some it's not a. Like a monad, you know, just a point of view. I'm not sure what metaphysically is being said here, making the kernel of vitality still more concentrated and pure. You return to the source, thereby assisting in the operations of heaven. So, yeah, you are acting from your pure impulse. Or you could even see. This is sort of Nietzsche. Focus on the instincts, the will to power. Now you're actually part of the. The system. Of course, for Nietzsche, the system is not a harmonious, wonderful thing. It is a churning mass, you know, as inherited from Schopenhauer of. Of chaos. And I don't think we get that here. I think we get. I don't know. Why would we want to assist in the operations of heaven?

28:02 Wes: Sounds boring. Yeah. So the kernel of vitality doesn't just vanish when you die, but it becomes. It just gets concentrated. You turn into a concentrate and then you go to heaven and they pour some water in you and they re. Reanimate you into your spirit form.

28:25 Mark: There's a lot of orange juice terminology here.

28:29 Wes: Purity to concentrate, they take you out of the. Take you out of the.

28:33 Mark: Can I. I think we can interpret this not, you know, not having to do with existence after death as just a. A way of honing your soul by getting rid of the external stuff, sort of. Again, a stoic sort of vision of the pure self. And that's when you are returning to the source. That's all that means, is you're operating according to the primary blueprint, not a foreign blueprint.

28:59 Wes: Okay.

29:00 Mark: All right. Finally we get to the stories. That's what all these books are always made about, the stories that are going to illustrate what we've been talking about. Go ahead, pronounce as you may.

29:12 Wes: Yeah, I don't care. Master Liezi said to Guanyin, the guard of the Pass, quote, the utmost person can walk underwater without suffocating, tread on fire without getting scorched, move over the face of all things without trembling. How does he reach such a state? Well, he gets the next one. Yeah.

29:36 Mark: So the utmost person, I think Superior man was in some of my translations that, you know, it's the. The idea of the sage. And why do we have to feel like that? The sage is magic. I mean, it's just a question. Are we talking metaphorically? Are we talking about literally? I think if we were, we had Our original episode 12, guest on. He. He would suggest that they were talking very literally and he seemed to think that they expected sort of magical feats to come out of these sages but we don't have to read it like that.

30:15 Wes: Yeah, okay. Guanyin said, by preserving his pure, vital energy, not through understanding, skill, resoluteness or courage. Stay awhile. I will tell you about it. Whatever has an appearance, an image, a sound or a color is a being. How can any being be much different from any other being? How could any of them have what it takes to be the first? For they themselves are nothing more than colors and forms? Hence, there must be a beginning of beings in the formlessness and an end of beings in the unchanging. How could he who finds this and realizes it fully be brought to a halt by any mere being?

Such a one will position himself in the measure of his place without overflow, and yet hide himself away in the proportions of the endless roaming through. Sorry, Roaming through that in which all beings end and begin. He unifies his inborn nature, nourishes his vital energy and merges with his intrinsic virtuosities, thereby opening into the place from which all beings are created. Someone like this keeps the heavenly in him intact and the imponderable spirit in him free. Free of gaps. So there is nowhere through which mere beings can get at him.

31:41 Mark: I'm sure there are no commas in the original. So the endless roaming actually could be the proper inflection. We don't know.

31:51 Wes: Okay, so we're not able to become a sage and do all that cool stuff by practicing or being virtuous. Understanding, skill, resoluteness or courage. You can't just habituate yourself into those things, but you do it by preserving vital energy. All right.

32:12 Mark: Are you thinking about the Dr. Strangelove of.

32:17 Wes: Yeah, right. Of course.

32:20 Mark: No sex.

32:20 Wes: Essential fluids. Yeah. This goes along with the whole concentrate thing. It's all about essential bodily fluids not being stolen from you.

32:33 Mark: Gross.

32:34 Wes: What is the phrase in the movie? Do you remember Precious bodily fluids? That's really what he's talking about here. All right. Then he goes on to tell us about beings. Why would anyone be afraid of beings? They're just beings. So what? They're just colors, you know? Is that dagger being shoved into your thigh? It's just a color. It's just a triangle. It's just a geometric shape.

32:57 Mark: I mean, how can any being be much different than any other being? Certainly they're pretty different to us. And we don't know the intrinsic natures of the beings. I mean, really, it seems like he's presenting this as. Oh, it's just an appearance. Right? The phenomenal world. How could things. Appearances in the phenomenal world be much different. And the. The response tends to be historically, well, maybe a qua appearances, they're not so different, but in themselves, who knows? I mean, I guess just. Do we have any warrant for. For saying that a human being is a fundamentally different kind of entity than some other being, so that we have vastly different moral responsibilities, for instance, toward one and not toward the other?

He just seems to be saying, you know, you. You're just a bunch of colors and shapes and sounds to me. I mean, it's just a being. And so, so am I. You know, what things come and go like. So it's hard to have any moral seriousness about any of it.

33:55 Wes: So I was going to make a joke about how I rank my beings on a 1 to 10 scale. The appearance of my beings is very important to me. Some are tens, some are sixes. Most of my life is in the domain of 5 to 6. As far as my appearances go, as far as the phenomena around me go,

34:15 Mark: I mean, that's just.

34:16 Wes: You're pretty award if you were a fish.

34:19 Mark: A ten for Wes, probably a one for a fish.

34:23 Wes: Well, I'm not making good enough use of my precious bodily fluids, so they would be better. But anyway, rating the idea, maybe rating is relevant because when he says, how could any of them have what it takes to be the first? I mean, he may be talking about priority in time as the progenitor of other beings, but it sounds like you are on the track maybe of saying, yeah, is it the case that human beings are more important than animals and animals are more important than inanimate objects? Is what he's saying? Is he just reducing this all to phenomena?

That might be what the point is. And then the question becomes. And then you say, I mean, obviously he is talking about a beginning because that's what he gets onto in the next thing. But the beginning turns out to be formlessness, whereas normally. Right. And then the end is unchanging. Normally in Western philosophy, we think of the beginning in terms of the unchanging in the sense of a God of some sort. It would be a pretty weird Christian tradition. There is chaos and there is, you know, formlessness in the Christian tradition. But go ahead.

35:26 Mark: Right. It would be a pretty weird response to the cosmological argument as given by Aristotle or anybody else to say, you know, Aristotle say, oh, there must be a first being. They must be an unmoved mover for it to say, well, qua being something is just an image, an appearance, a color, a sound. So God is just one of those how could. How could God be first? I mean, is that a coherent response? I mean, it is insofar as you aren't convinced by that argument. And saying, like, what would a first being would have to be some somehow fundamentally different in character.

But just if we think that things are subject to causality at all, we're saying that they are of a similar kind of character. Like, why would we even think that it has to go all the way back to a single first being if we think that there could be different orders of being? Maybe there are many, many first movers. Right. It's just they're the cause beings. Those are the, you know, beings in the phenomenal sense. And then they're the ultimate beings and there are many of them and they're all over the place. And you'd have to have a second argument for why God is one, etc.

36:31 Wes: We're talking about the absolute in the sense of the bedrock. And that can be atoms, it can be God, Gods can be anything. We want things in themselves of an unknown nature. But the Hegelian and Aristotelian argument against the idea that we are just stuck in a veil of illusion or a realm of appearances is that any unity we encounter in the realm of appearance, to encounter beings is to encounter unities. They have to be unified in some sense. And unity always breaks out of jail. It is always a transcendent quality. You can't just say it's inside the matrix.

It points always to something outside the matrix. And those beings outside of the matrix that account for unity within it are, yes, on the order of God or some ultimately Platonic forms, or for Aristotle, they have to be imminent, Right. And they turn out to be like dynamic formal systems underlying the realm of appearance. Right. Something much more akin to modern science. But anyway, you need something like that, I think. But yeah, I don't know if that really is the thesis here, that there's. That everything is reducible to phenomena.

37:49 Mark: And to say everything is reducible phenomena, hence there must be a beginning of beings in the formlessness and an end in the unchanging. Seems like there's an argument that we're just not seeing that is not being given here. Because it does. Yeah.

38:02 Wes: What is. What is it?

38:03 Mark: What. Why not say it's formlessness to formlessness or unchanging to unchanging or something like that. If you have an idea of beings just sort of rise out of a primordial soup and then they fall back again because of entropy or whatever, I could see that. But like there's an inevitable. Once they arise towards the unchanging. I mean, is the unchanging the ultimate end of entropy? You start with a formlessness and you end with a complete monism.

38:33 Wes: That could be it. I mean, you start with a dynamic. When I think of formlessness, I think of motion and dynamism. Right. Because that's what the chaos is. It doesn't have form, but it's got activity. And then things coalesce out of that. So you get the realm of becoming, which is a mixture of the changing and unchanging. And then, yeah, if entropically, it all just collapses, let's say, back into God or back into a singularity or whatever you want to call it, then that entity at the very end, when everything is no longer active, would be something unchanging.

39:14 Mark: Yeah. I'm finding this actually less arbitrary and more intuitively plausible as we talk about it, because things couldn't start as the unchanging. Why would they get going there?

39:24 Wes: That's what Aristotle said.

39:25 Mark: Yeah, exactly. And how could they end if they were still in a dynamic state? So either they end in the unchanging or they don't end at all. And it's just eternal.

39:37 Wes: Exactly.

39:37 Mark: He just seems to find it somehow, I think. I don't know if the unchanging implies eternal, but he seems to think if there's a movement, then there has to be a beginning and the end to the movement. Right. Of the cosmos as a whole.

39:52 Wes: Yeah. Whereas Aristotle argues explicitly against that and says the movement is circular. That's why there's not. Sure, ultimately, the eternal movement is a circular movement. So it can be both changing and unchanging in a sense, at the same time. And that, of course, is the whole trick of getting being out of becoming. As in an electron going around a nucleus. Right. You get formality out of chaos and activity by everything not simply just flying apart. You get repetition, like habits, grooves in reality. There's a habituality to things and circularity or repetition that makes formality possible.

40:32 Mark: So then, once you realize all this stuff, you cannot be brought to a halt by a mere being. You position yourself in the measure of your place without overflow. Such a one will position himself in the measure of his place without overflow, yet hide himself away. The proportions of the endless roaming through that in which all beings end and begin. I don't know what this means in any literal way.

40:59 Wes: All right, so the first thing is brought. You wouldn't. If you understand all this, you wouldn't be brought to a Halt by any being that sounds like, you know, who's afraid of the big bad wolf. I don't even know the meaning. The meaning of that phrase. Actually. I'm not sure if that is related at all. But. So, yeah, I think if the world is just phenomena, then it's less scary. So I think. Or, you know, if desire is just for phenomena. Desire is less pressing and we're less. Less likely. Right. In the existential sense. We're not trying to fill this ultimate void or lack within us. We understand it as something different in our own activity. It's the journey. Right. Not the destination.

41:41 Mark: Sure.

41:42 Wes: Okay. We'll position himself in the measure of his place without overflow. Overflow could be desire for sure.

41:49 Mark: Yeah. Wanting luxuries and just trying to do too much.

41:55 Wes: Yep. Yet hide himself away in the proportions of the endless roaming through that in which all beings end and begin. Okay. Yeah.

42:03 Mark: Like why the word? Why the word yet there. Because it seems like these are both. These are synonyms. They're. I'm gonna position myself in the measure of my place. I'm gonna hide away in the proportions of the endless. Okay, maybe these are two aspects. I'm just not sure how.

42:18 Wes: So one sounds like temperance. Yeah, right. What is the second thing that is in contradistinction to that?

42:25 Mark: Well, it's the whole thing.

42:26 Wes: It sounds like if you're in the proportions of the endless, you're open to ecstatic moments. Maybe as well, you're not just. Oh yeah, just give me the right, exact right amount of tea. I'm temperate.

42:40 Mark: Sure.

42:40 Wes: Okay. Yeah. Where is there a place for ecstatic moments in this scheme? Maybe that's what. That's pure speculation.

42:45 Mark: Obviously the proportions roaming through that in which all beings end and begin. So you understand, like returning to the source of sort of focusing that I'm only going to react to the primary thing. But how that amounts to a roaming exploration. That's interesting. That implies that the source is not merely sort of a static will to power or some. Will to power is obviously not static, but it seems like will to powers one directional. You know, there's libido. You don't roam through the libido. Like, I don't even know what that would mean. But if you're by. By getting back to the source, you are participating in the plan of heaven. Seems there might be a lot more concrete stuff that you're doing than merely just like acknowledging your own desire and trying to further it or something like that. Acknowledging your own. Your own natural desires. Let's Put it that way.

43:39 Wes: This seems to be in line with. Yeah. Preserving pure vital energy. Right. Getting back to some vital source, whatever it is. Yeah. The thing in which all beings end and begin merging with your. It sounded like they began in formlessness and ended in the unchanging. So there's an element of both in that.

44:01 Mark: So you're saying it's not the whole cosmos that just ends in the unchanging, but each individual thing. I'm not seeing like that sage is unchanging in some significant.

44:12 Wes: No, no, no, no.

44:13 Mark: Okay.

44:14 Wes: He unifies his inborn nature, but we're unifying the formlessness and the unchanging. Nourishing vital energy. Merges his intrinsic virtuosities.

44:25 Mark: Merges with his intrinsic virtuosities.

44:27 Wes: Oh, with them.

44:29 Mark: I mean, unifying your inborn nature sounds like merging the virtuosity. If the virtuosities are. What? I don't. This is the chap. The title of the whole chapter. Oh, no, it's. It's Fathoming Life. This is the theme of the whole chapter is about what these virtuosities are opening into the place from which all beings are created. Yeah. Being like a child being. I mean, it seems like we've said all this.

44:55 Wes: Nowhere through which mere beings can get at him free of gaps. Okay.

45:02 Mark: Yep.

45:02 Wes: So that does sound. Now we're closed off. So opening into the place from which all beings are created, but closed to mere beings.

45:13 Mark: Yeah, because you've let go of life. So we're.

45:15 Wes: Yeah, we're open to a deeper source place, but not letting the realm of phenomena get at us. This does sound. There is a thing in itself here which has something to do with vital energy and the place where all beings are created and where beings end and begin. All of that stuff points to the thing in the self realm, which is what we are supposed to be engaged with as opposed to the phenomena. And for Schopenhauer, that would be the will. The thing in itself. Realm just is the will, which is not dissimilar, I think, to. I mean, it's not what he's saying, but it's in the same domain as vital energy.

45:55 Mark: All right, the next paragraph you will recognize. You will remember that you have read this before. Proceed.

46:01 Wes: Oh, why? When a drunken man falls from a cart, he may be hurt, but he will not be killed. His bones and joints are no different from those of other men. But the degree of harm done by the fall differs radically. For the imponderable spirit in him forms one intact whole, having been unaware that he was riding. He is now unaware that he is falling. The frights and shocks of life and death have no way to enter his breast. So he is unflinching, no matter how things may clash with him. Finding wholeness in liquor, he reaches such a state. Imagine when someone who finds his wholeness in the heavenly. Imagine then someone who finds his wholeness in the heavenly. The sage submerges himself in the heavenly. And that is why nothing can harm him. I'm drunk on heaven. Why do you. Why am I remembering?

46:54 Mark: Maybe you haven't re listened to episode 12 ever. But you know, I remember you being affected by this. And this is like the one paragraph that we actually picked out from this part of this chapter and discussed as having some intuitive resonance that. Yes. That being not so uptight. Being able to. It's just a very vivid image. Whether it's just a metaphor or whether it's an example of the virtuosity. I'm not completely sure.

47:21 Wes: Did I make a joke about being drunk on heaven in the original?

47:24 Mark: I. Probably not.

47:28 Wes: So you know how they say. Yeah. People who are drunk or also children are less prone to breaking bones when they fall.

47:39 Mark: This is probably what you said in episode 12. Yes, probably.

47:43 Wes: Yeah. That's true.

47:46 Mark: Yeah.

47:47 Wes: Having that suppleness know that you're going to fall out of a tall building. Get drunk before you do it.

47:52 Mark: So. So it seems like adrenochrome. Infant stem cell treatments. We need some kind of. We need to retain the vital.

48:04 Wes: I think it's about not tensing up. And children. It may be different. I think their bones are just softer. But something about not tensing up when you hit the ground. You just got to become the ground. You got to go with the ground.

48:18 Mark: A seeker of revenge does not go so far as to smash his enemy's weapon. And even the most ill tempered person bears no hatred for a loose tile that happens to plunk down on his head. This reveals to us a way in which all the world can become peaceful and balanced. It is through this course, the dao, that freedom from the chaos of war and from the cruelties of killing can be reached. Do not develop the heavenly of man, but the heavenly of heaven. Developing the heavenly empowers the life in us. Developing the human plunders it insatiably. Partake of the heavenly, but do not neglect the human either. Then even the ordinary people around you will soon come to live by what is genuine in them. You don't think a seeker of revenge would smash his enemy's weapon I think that's maybe the first thing that you would want to do

49:09 Wes: if you have

49:10 Mark: a chance, but certainly if I'm seeking revenge on you because you kept hitting me with your goddamn pencil. Well, the first thing I'm doing is I take that pencil and I got to break it in half.

49:20 Wes: That's just a means to an end, though. So the weapon isn't the, the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to make sure they're good and dead and maybe do some suffering on the way. But the ill tempered person bears no hatred for the loose tile that happens to plunk down on his head. We talked about this before. You know, there's that famous story from Herodotus of Xerxes getting angry at the ocean because he can't cross over and throwing shackles into it and having it whipped. And then I think we've talked before on the partial Examined Life about.

Well, we actually do get angry at inanimate objects and throw a broken keyboard across the room or something like that because we're frustrated, in which case we are simply turning our objects into metaphors. The point is that we're always, if we get angry, it is always at some level with an other, as in, which is to say an other subjectivity, recognition is always implicated. And we saw with Aristotle, the very definition of anger is to be slighted. It has to be sourced in narcissistic injury or wounded pride, let's say. So that given that psychology, which I think what he's pointing to here is that we are our anger.

And it's not even about the actual. It's not about the weapon, it's not about the injury specifically that they've caused us. We suffer all the time. But it's about the disrespect. That's what makes us angry. It's about the other. The other what's going on in the mind of the other. I don't know, maybe this is not relevant here. I thought I was setting up.

51:01 Mark: I think it is relevant because I think that what you're describing as inevitably the way that we suffer injury, he thinks is not inevitable and that we. The reason we're not mad at the weapon is because I'm mad at you, not your weapon. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. I shouldn't be mad at the gun, but I shouldn't be mad at the user of the gun either. Because the user of the gun is just as much, you know, the causal, the deterministic causal chain. And so agency is, is an illusion and we should just chill out and see what happens as the force of nature. And if somebody does something bad to you, you should regard it just like if a storm came and did something bad to you. We don't get mad at either of them.

51:46 Wes: This is what I try to do to avoid road rage. I just think, just imagine they're all robots, right? If I knew that all the cars were just autonomously driven by robots, I would never get angry because it'd be like it raining, you know, this robot is broken. It's not doing, you know, it's cutting me off. Broken robot. I could look at human beings in that way. Oh yeah, they're malfunctioning. Then we wouldn't be so angry. Course that through this course. Freedom from chaos and war. So yeah, it sounds like we transcend revenge.

52:23 Mark: Yep.

52:24 Wes: Right. Because exactly what you're saying. Because we're looking at the world in this way as people, as part of the deterministic reality. But what about not developing the heavenly of men, but the heavenly of heaven?

52:38 Mark: And then it says do not neglect the human either. So it seems like. I mean, I. I'm just seeing. This is like Confucianism is the heavenly of man. What? How can we hone specifically human to the best of its ability? Well, that's sort of a petty thing. Because the human is not that awesome. You know, it's. It's merely a part of the bigger thing. Get into the heavenly, you know, develop whatever you were doing regarding honing your humaneness to homing your existence qua biological slash spiritual being instead of merely the human. The social.

53:14 Wes: We don't need no education. We don't need your rules, man.

53:18 Mark: But you do need developing the heavenly that will power life within you. But if you develop the human, then your. Your life is getting distracted. Your vital essences are going out to do other stuff. Your vital fluids, precious bodily fluids, insatiably partake of the heavenly. But do not neglect the human either. Then even the ordinary people around you will soon come to live by what is genuine in them. So you're not developing your humaneness in a Confucian sense. But you know, don't become a hermit. I guess this is like do talk to other people. Acknowledge your, you know, part of what it is to be a biological being is to be social. So don't get sucked into that.

54:03 Wes: Don't become an ascetic monk. That's not what he's advocating here. Don't become a saint, an ascetic monk. Don't withdraw from life. You're still going to live, so. And again, sounds very stoic in that sense. You're going to look much like the ordinary person. You're just going to be less pissed off much of the time.

54:23 Mark: All right, to wrap up here, I do want us to read this first three paragraphs on 151, because this is something that our guest Karyn in the the the Partially Examined Life episode sort of described, but maybe not in a way that I thought that anybody who hadn't actually read it could understand what she was talking about. So I'm hoping that, like, if we at least just read this and get this on the table and not spend more than five minutes on it.

54:44 Wes: Okay. All right, let's do it. When Confucius was traveling through the forests of Chu, he came upon a hunchback who was catching cicadas with a glue tipped stick as if plucking them up with his hand. Confucius said, how skillful you are. Or do you have a course? Oh, is that the way?

55:04 Mark: Yes, the dao. Yep.

55:06 Wes: The old man said, I'm selling my course for $40. Now. The old man said, I have a course for five or six months. I practice piling one pellet on top of the other. When I could make a stack of two without it toppling over already, I would lose only very few cicadas. When I could make a stack of three, I could catch nine out of ten. By the time I was able to balance a stack of five, I could catch the cicadas as if plucking them up with my hand. Wash on, wash off. Sorry. I settle my body like a twisted old stump, my arm as still as the branch of a withered tree. Although heaven and earth are vast and the 10,000 things numerous, I'm aware of nothing but cicada wings. Motionless. Neither turning nor learning. I would not trade nor leaning. Sorry.

55:57 Mark: No turning nor learning.

55:58 Wes: No turning nor learning. Turning and learning. Turning nor leaning, I would not trade away a single cicada wing for all of creation. How could I fail to catch them no matter what I do? Confucius turned to his disciples and said, using this will undividedly. His will undividedly, the imponderable spirit in him converges and solidifies. That would perhaps describe our hunchbacked gentleman here.

56:26 Mark: So in the partial Examined Life episode, our concern was maybe like, what the hell is Confucius doing in the story? Why is Zhuangzi using Confucius as his hero? Is he making fun of Confucius? Because Confucius is being Reductionist about what this guy is doing. I just want us to read it straightforwardly like that. Confucius is making the point that Zhuangzi wants to make, which is he's.

56:48 Wes: Sounds like it.

56:48 Mark: Using his will undividedly. He's. He's really focused. So he is an ascetic of a source. This is exactly the kind of thing that Nietzsche in his, you know, genealogy essay three on asceticism might be talking about. Of. Like you're neglecting everything else. Because I am only catching about the wings of the cicadas. I'll say that I do not understand what piling one pellet on top of another has to do with trying to catch cicadas with a stick. I do not get the connection at all, but maybe it doesn't matter.

57:22 Wes: Well, he's. He's got a stick with a sticky end and he's got to practice hitting small things with it. Just got to increase his manual dexterity. And that's. So he's using it on pellets. I don't know how you pile one on top. I don't know how you release one pellet onto the stack or. But so.

57:41 Mark: So maybe this is training. That is.

57:43 Wes: Is training. Yeah.

57:44 Mark: Training for using my stick. Is I. Without a stick nearby. I just. Literally, what he's saying is I just made little stacks of things just to see, like making card houses or whatever other sort of just to work on my precision and dexterity. Not that the pellets are actually helping him catch cicadas in a direct way. That he's not chucking pellets at the cicadas.

58:08 Wes: He's not right. He's not right. He's practicing is. Yeah, well, that's why I said wash on wa. Not wash off. He's like, for karate. Remember that? And karate kids.

58:17 Mark: Wax on, wax off.

58:18 Wes: But yes, I. Oh, did I say wash off? Sorry. Wax on, wax off. Yeah. Remember when Mr.

58:28 Mark: Taught him how to wash his face? Put the soap on now get it off. Don't just leave the soap on all day. It'll dry your skin.

58:38 Wes: He helped him bathe. That would have been a little bit different of a story. All right. Wax on, wax off. Yeah. So same sort of idea. He's doing something that's not directly related, but it's increasing his manual dexterity and it's also increasing his ability to focus. That sounds like a big part of it. I mean, the lesson here is it's the dao, right? So that's anti Confucian. Ultimately, it's not that he's following rules exactly. It's that he's more in touch with the way. And that provides for focus ultimately.

59:15 Mark: Well, he's in touch with, like, those cicadas. He's in touch with his external world. He's present. And it's. I mean, it might seem like this is a kind of a stupid thing to dedicate your life to, but he said, well, you got to do something. So. Like what? Nothing is really worth doing, but you got it. So it's all. Yeah.

59:37 Wes: So it might be valuable. I don't know.

59:39 Mark: Right. You could get a good.

59:40 Wes: But I think they're living that way. There's cicadas in them. They're hills. So I. You know, this idea of becoming like a tree and a withered tree at that, sort of merging into the environment, becoming part of the environment again. That sounds like being in touch with vital energies and becoming one among the phenomena and all that stuff. And that, I guess, is what facilitates focus, awareness of nothing but the cicada wings. So I would not. Right. His will undividedly imponderable spirit in him converges. So something that's normally divided and conflicted keeps us from having that level of concentration and skill. And it sounds like to do something, well, we have to resolve that division and that conflict. So what is that conflict? What is it that normally divides us?

1:00:41 Mark: I mean, being pulled by foreign influences, I would think.

1:00:47 Wes: Just got to put the blinders on, block everything out.

1:00:51 Mark: You know, I think I habitually just read this wrong. I read it as the indomitable spirit in him because that is an idiom for us. But the imponderable spirit, that's not an idiom. I don't know what that means exactly.

1:01:07 Wes: Well, it's not visible. It's not. Can't be pondered. Right. Can't be understood.

1:01:12 Mark: Visible. It's not. Okay. All right.

1:01:14 Wes: Well, it can't be. The incomprehensible is what it sounds like.

1:01:18 Mark: Sure. But I can't. Isn't the whole point of pondering is that you don't have to actually understand and comprehend. You're. You're pondering a mystery. So it is, you know, the mysterious. It is ponderable. Anyway, this is just a translation thing.

1:01:32 Wes: Well, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, no, I just. Yeah. It's not a physical entity that we can see so that it's ineffable. In other words, ineffable might have been a better word here, but it becomes effable by converging and solidifying. So there's something about the ineffability of the spirit and the will. The fact that it's this non physical entity that makes it harder to grasp and control, even from the inside. And so it becomes. Becomes more like one of the objects outside of it. Right. He becomes like the tree. He becomes aware of nothing but the cicada wings. Yeah, it sounds like reducing the division between subject and object to some extent.

1:02:17 Mark: So I did not intend us to go any further in this. I don't necessarily want a part two to this. I want us to move on to something else.

1:02:23 Wes: I see.

1:02:24 Mark: I feel like this example has given a glimpse of one of the kinds of things he could mean in, in the previous paragraphs. In that he is, you know, he is present. He is, but he's not born anew to every situation. Like he has established himself as the cicada guy. Right? He's. He's a. He's just doing it. So is he in bad faith as the cicada guy? You're pretending you're just the cicada guy, but aren't you really more than that? Well, no, I'm actually distilling my will. So I only care about the cicadas, at least while I'm doing this cicada stuff. So there's no bad faith because I've actually tried to remake myself in this way. I don't know.

1:03:04 Wes: Yeah, I think you could care about someone thing deeply. But it's about not typecasting yourself or pigeonholing yourself. Like I am the cicada guy versus I have devoted my life to cicadas. Right. The waiter identifies himself and so begins to enact a role for Sartre. Right? They become a role player. And so when they do a particularly waiterly thing, it's not spontaneous. They're not just being unselfconscious, but it's like, ooh, the waiter presents his arm. Like it's leaning in too much into the role, I guess. I don't know.

1:03:38 Mark: Does cicada guy have a partner that he goes home and is able to have real relations with? Or does he just talk cicadas all day? Is he so focused on cicadas that he just can't even talk to other people?

1:03:52 Wes: Honey, if you mentioned cicadas one more time.

1:03:56 Mark: Look, cicada time is when you. You go to work, when you're home. It is me time. I don't want to hear about the gun unless something different has happened.

1:04:06 Wes: But you don't understand. I caught 70 of these things today anyway. All right, well, all right.

1:04:12 Mark: Thanks for your your humoring me and and spending a little more time with this text. Hope people enjoyed it. Welcome if you are listening on the Close Reads is now publicly available on the Evergreen Podcast Network, or at least will be within the week that we are recording this. Yes, you now have a way of not just Partially Examined Life Citizens, but everybody can experience the joys of this podcast. Although we're going to start releasing we're releasing episodes from the beginning, so those

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1:04:58 Wes: Bye.

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