Chapter 38 Where I Live; Why I Live - 6

For me, I don't think it matters whether there is a post office or not.I think that only important messages with few roots need to be mailed.In my life, he said, I have received at most one or two letters worth the postage--that's a sentence I wrote some years ago.Usually, the penny postage system is designed to pay a man a penny and you can get his mind, but often all you get is a joke.I dare say, too, that I have never read anything memorable in the papers.If we read that so-and-so was robbed, or murdered, or died, or a house burned, or a ship sank, or a steamship was blown up, or a cow was killed on the Western Railroad or a mad dog dies, or a swarm of grasshoppers in winter—we read nothing else.One piece of news is enough.If you have the principles, why care about the billions of examples and their applications?To a philosopher, what is called journalism is nothing but nonsense, and editors and readers are nothing but gossips over their tea.Yet many people greedily listen to this nonsense.I heard that on that day, everyone was robbing and scrambling to go to the newspaper office to listen to the latest international news. Several large glass windows in the newspaper office were broken under such pressure——that news, I Seriously, a sane person could have written it fairly accurately twelve months ago, or even twelve years ago.Say Spain, for example, if you know how to put the words Don Carlos and Infanta, Don Pietro, Seville and Granada from time to time, in proper proportion—these words, since I read the newspaper So far, there may have been a little change——and then, when there is no interesting news, let’s talk about bullfighting. This is real news, reporting the current situation and changes in Spain in detail , exactly like the most succinct news under that headline in the papers now: In England, again, the last important news from that part of the world is almost always the Revolution of 1649; You don't have to pay attention to those things anymore, unless you want to use it for speculation and make some money.If you can judge who seldom reads the newspapers, there is really nothing new happening abroad, not even a French Revolution.

What news!It is much more important to know events that never age!Peng Boyu (Doctor Wei) sent someone to Confucius.Confucius sat with him and asked why.Said: Master, why?Confrontation: Master wants to be less guilty but fails.Messenger out.Confucius said: make it, make it.In the days of rest when the weary farmers doze off after the week has passed—this Sunday was a fitting end to a bad week, but not a fresh and brave start to another. ,—however the pastor does not bother the ears of the peasants with one or another sloppy sermon, but shouts like thunder: "Stop! Stop! Why does it seem fast, but in fact you are so slow?" What about death?"

Lies and fallacies have been overrated for the healthiest truths, and reality is absurd.If people in the world just looked at reality steadily and did not allow themselves to be deceived, then, to use a metaphor as we know it, life would seem like a fairy tale, like an Arabian Nights.If we honored only what is inevitable and has a right to exist, music and poetry would fill the streets.If we are slow and wise, we shall know that only the great and the beautiful have a permanent and absolute existence--that petty fears and petty joys are but shadows of reality.Reality is often lively and sublime.By closing their eyes, in ecstasy, and letting themselves be deceived by shadows, man establishes the orbits and habits of his daily life, obeying them everywhere, when they are actually based on pure fantasy.Children who live playfully are more able to discover the laws of life and real relationships than grown-ups, who cannot live worthwhile, think they are wiser because they have experience, that is to say, they often fail.I read in an Indian book, "There was a prince, expelled from his native city as a child, and brought up by a woodcutter, who always thought he belonged to the pariah class in which he lived. His father's officials later found out that He, having told him his parentage, dispelled the misconceptions of his character, and he knew himself to be a prince. So," the Indian philosopher went on, "the soul misunderstood His own character had to be revealed to him by the divine teacher. Then he knew that he was a Brahmin." I saw that we New Englanders live such a low life because our Sight does not penetrate the surface of things.We take what seems to be what it is.If one could walk through this town and see only reality, what do you think would happen to the "cistern"?Had he given us a description of reality as he witnessed it, none of us would have known where he was describing it.Look at council halls, or courts, or prisons, or shops, or dwellings, and you say, what are these things when you really look at them, and they all fall down in your picture.Men honor remote truths, those outside the system, those beyond the farthest star, those before Adam, and those after the last age.Naturally, there is truth and sublime in eternity.But all these times, all these places and all these occasions, are here and now!The greatness of God lies in the greatness of the present, and in spite of the passing of time, he will never be holier.It is only by forever permeating reality, by unearthing the reality that surrounds us, that we can understand what is sublime.The universe is always obedient to our perceptions; whether we go fast or slow, the tracks are laid out for us.Let us devote our lives to being aware of them.The poet and artist never had such a beautiful and sublime design, yet at least some of his descendants were able to complete it.

Let us go about our day as nature does, and not be derailed by a nut shell or a mosquito's wing that falls on the track.Let us rise at dawn, without or having breakfast, calmly and undisturbed; let people come and go, let the clocks strike and the children cry--resolved to have a good day.Why do we surrender, or even drift with the tide?Let us not be dismayed by the dreadful rapids and eddies called luncheons in the meridian shallows.If you survive this danger, you will be safe, and it will be the way down the mountain from now on.With unrelaxed nerves, and with dawn vigor, sail in another direction, chained to the mast like Ulysses.If the whistle whistles, let it hoarse.If the bell is ringing, why should we run?We still need to study what kind of music it is?Let us set our minds to work, and trudge our feet through the mire of opinion, prejudice, tradition, delusion, and surface, O silt that blinds the whole earth, let us cross Paris, London, New York, Boston, Concord, Church and State, Poetry, Philosophy and Religion, until we get to a hard substratum where we call reality and say, that's it, that's it, and then you can Above this point dappui, below the flood, the frost, and the fire, begin to build a wall or a country at this place, and perhaps erect a lamppost safely, or a measuring instrument, not a Nile water measuring instrument, but a measuring The instrument of reality, let the future era know how deep the accumulation of lies and ostentation has been like a flood.If you stand upright and face the facts, you will see the sun shining on both sides, it is like a short oriental scimitar, and you can feel its sweet edge cutting through your heart and marrow, you And joyfully willing to end your human career.Whether it is life or death, we only pursue reality.If we should die, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel the cold in our extremities; if we live, let us go about our business.

Time is but the brook I fish in.I drink the stream, and as I drink I see its sandy bottom, how shallow it is.Its flowing waters pass away, but eternity remains.I would like to drink deeper; to fish in the sky, the bottom of which is pebbled with stars.I can't count "one".I don't know the first letter of the alphabet.I often regret that I am not as smart as I was when I was born.Intelligence is a knife; it sees it well, and cuts its way through the secrets of things.I don't want my hands to be any more busy than necessary.My mind is hands and feet.I feel like my best faculties are concentrated there.My instinct tells me that my head can burrow, like some animals use their nose and some with their front paws, and I will use it to dig my hole and dig my way through these mountains.I think the richest veins are here somewhere; with gold-seeking wands, By the rising mists, I'll judge; Here I'll start mines.