Preserving the Legacy

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The world is in chaos. Politics is reality show. As I write this forest fires are burning up parts of LA while a deep freeze grips the US south. Climate change is changing pretty rapidly. I fully expect humanity to survive, and in centuries, prosper again. It’s just going to be rough and cruel.

One thing I’m doing is preserving philosophical and religious books to people that I know will be interested in them, that will preserve them, and give them away to reliable folks if needed. In the disasters that are here and ones that may come, these things that guided me may guide others. It’s a chance to leave something to help those in the future, and in a personal way.

I sit here and know the world isn’t ending but parts of it are, and many ways of life will. I ask what matters to me, what taught me, and what will help others. I ask who I can trust and who will care. I ask a lot of questions right now about a world I will one day not be in.

It’s a humbling experience. I am looking at books asking what helped me become who I am, wanting to pass it to people who aren’t me and knowing I won’t be there. I feel myself stretched forward in time, asking what’s next. I have to think about what will help someone unknown grow, what preserves what is good today.

It’s an enlightening experience. I have a large library but have to ask what truly mattered to me and will matter to others. I can see a pattern, a timeline of what books helped me grow, and it helps me understand myself. I can ask what will help others.

It’s also an experience I want to share. I recommend you do this if you have some specific holy books – or any books – to preserve. It makes you think, appreciate what you have, who you are, and who you can trust. It’s a way to think of the future.

So here, as we face a lot of challenges, take a moment to save what matters to you spiritually. Leave something for those to come. Maybe it’ll help shape the future into a better way just like it shaped you.

-Xenofact

Not Alone Among The Books

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As I mentioned several times before, I like to read various Taoist documents as it helps me build a mental “ecosystem.” That ecosystem helps me understand my meditative work, develop philosophical understanding, and better connect to the world. However, I noted another benefit as of late – a feeling of understanding.

I read of historical figures whose tales border on or are legend, often presented by Taoist writers as examples or cautionary tales. I find some of them relatable, in virtues, in flaws, and in experiences. Across the centuries, the aeons, I feel kinship, even in my own mistakes.

There are authors who comment on their experiences, plans, and desires. There, reading a book from a thousand years ago, I get them. I understand what they’re trying to do, what they’re experiencing, and even their mistakes. Sometimes you learn a lot by going “I understand why you said that” and “been there.”

Then there’s all the advice and observations these ancient Taoist writers provide. Timeless stuff, the same observations, even the same issues, are things they wrote about and things I learn about now. It’s not just that it’s useful, someone wrote it down to help others, someone going through what I went through.

Then when you look at these books hundreds or thousands of years old, you realize that you have it because of a chain of scribes and printers transcribing it. Someone made sure you had this book, dipping their pen into ink, arranging blocks on the press. You have that book because of people who did that – and if you’re someone like me, that’s someone like us.

Finally, there’s the translators, some of whom leave their own notes and commentary, sometimes even their own experience getting the book done. These are the people that made sure you can read the book – and make sense of metaphors, cultural tropes, and so on. They did this for a reason.

All these books make me feel not just informed, but less alone. There’s people like me, people who I get and relate to. Whatever wisdom I gain from their works and efforts, I also gain a sense of camaraderie.

Maybe this also explains some of the thrill I get sharing books that matter to me. A book may find someone who connects to it like I do, and there’s one more person feeling that connected to all those who came before.

-Xenofact

The Tao Isn’t The Market

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In my Taoist readings, “the Tao” is always a subject of discussion. This is ironic because as the beloved Tao Te Ching notes, when you speak of the Tao you’re not speaking of the real Tao. A great deal of Taoist writing is talking about how ineffable the Tao is then writing a huge amount about it. There’s a reason I compare writers like Chuang-Tzu to people like Dave Barry – you need that mix of humor and sarcasm to handle such irony.

Of course that’s kind of the point. You have a word for the ineffable (Tao) that’s behind all things, and that word represents everything and how you can’t really define it. The Tao is everywhere, it’s why everything is, it’s the smallest and the largest, the near and the far. Taoism takes a word that lets you refer to the great connected isness of absolutely everything that words can’t otherwise encompass.

It’s kind of a linguistic hack.

That, I find, is also the power of good Taoist writing. Using a single word and poetic writing, it reminds you that the universe is great and connected. Leading you around by words and sentences, you start intuitively getting to understanding the power behind everything. In turn, that lets you live in the world, living in harmony with things, knowing it’s all vast and everywhere and connected – Tao.

If you get it you get it. If you don’t, you don’t. If you want to fake it, you probably can for awhile. But a lot of Taoism is words leading you to the wordless, that there’s a force behind everything.

What’s funny is I realized lately that the Tao reminds me of how Capitalists think of the Almighty Market.

What is is. The Market speaks. The great and powerful force that reconciles everything is perfect and everywhere and if you don’t get rich then The Market has decided. The market is unquestionable and good and perfect and the foundation of all things. The market is like the Tao in that it’s ineffable, AND like a personal god in that it makes decisions about things, granting everything a moral quality. The Market cannot be questioned, it’s that awesome! Yet also it makes decisions.

What’s funny is the market being a human construct, being about profit and gain and exploitation, is something Taoists warned about for aeons. As a construct that warps human feelings, it’s to be regarded with suspicion. As something about gain, it risks the traps of greed and acquisitiveness, which corrupt society. As something surrounded by flummery and endless long-winded justifications, it’s as suspicious as pretentious intellectuals and politicians and would-be sages.

The way people treat The Market as some divine force darkly echoes the words of the Taoists with a touch of theology, and realizing that I understand Market Fanatics passion much better. It’s beyond greed, into religion and even a kind of perverse mysticism.

And thanks to the Taoists, who would have laughed at the Market Fanatics and their pretentious, helped me understand that better. And laugh, of course.

I appreciate the irony. Which Chuang-Tzu and Dave Barry would probably both appreciate.

– Xenofact