Respectful response and scornful response
How much is the difference?
Goodness and evil
How much do they differ?
What the people fear, I cannot be unafraid
So desolate! How limitless it is!
The people are excited
As if enjoying a great feast
As if climbing up to the terrace in spring
I alone am quiet and uninvolved
Like an infant not yet smiling
So weary, like having no place to return
The people all have surplus
While I alone seem lacking
I have the heart of a fool indeed – so ignorant!
Ordinary people are bright
I alone am muddled
Ordinary people are scrutinizing
I alone am obtuse
Such tranquility, like the ocean
Such high wind, as if without limits
The people all have goals
And I alone am stubborn and lowly
I alone am different from them
And value the nourishing mother
What does this mean?
When one talks about the concepts of good and evil, they are not 'natural' in the same observable way as honesty or compassion is. Good and evil are learned as they are cultural concepts. Look around the world and, depending on their culture and upbringing, you can see that one person's good can be another person's evil. Our responses, whether they deserve respect or scorn, is as much as a construct as good and evil are.
The natural good, like honesty, humility and charity, are universal. The important thing here is that you have to separate the virtuous "goodness" from the cultural "goodness" you've learned. That is why I refer to virtue instead of good as I feel it better defines those natural qualities that describe a sage. Keep "virtue" simple.
The Western culture you were born into is a construct that indoctrinated you into what "good" means.
Look at how everyone is told that they need to work hard, achieve something and have goals way past your needs; to thrive. They need to pursuit happiness and the American dream. They can judge others that are not like themselves, especially if they have different values or are at different levels of success. People embedded in our culture are living for fun, as if all the work done is to celebrate a big party. We all try to be experts and are proud enough to let you know that we are right all the time.
People explore this culture at varying lengths, and those who are on it seem to think that there is some sort of problem with the people too far in or not far enough. I think that the problem isn't where you are in culture and the moderation you apply to it; it is the culture itself.
How do I use this?
Do not care about judgement that are not founded in natural truths. The further outside of the culture you are, the more it makes you seem dumb, stubborn and simple.
I try to live simply and "naturally". Sometimes that means it matches with what is acceptable according to my culture, but it also means that I live philosophically outside culture a majority of the time.
The perfect example is those "charitable" holidays like Christmas. It is frustrating for others when I say I do not want anything for the holidays. There is no comprehension that anyone would not want a gift. Very often, people buy me things I do not want anyway because that is "what you do" for Christmas. The thought is only appreciated because they were thinking of me, but it's tempered by the fact they did not listen and that I didn't want it in the first place. Then they act surprised I do not treasure the thing and offended I do not use it.
It is like that with everything.
When I tell others I do not have goals, I get a lot of strange judgmental looks. People look down on me because I am trying to have as few things as possible and do not care about a bigger house or smartphone. When I talk about learning a new skill, people immediately suggest I seek out college or classes.
Get out of culture. Why care what anyone in such a culture thinks about you when it's based solely on an artificial construct and not something real? People have more stuff, more ways to communicate and more entertainment and yet have as many or even more problems back before we refined our culture into what it is today.
I refuse to have any sympathy for "first-world problems". It is like feeling bad for a spoiled child that lost his toy, even though that child has hundreds more. It is like someone who refuses to eat healthy because they do not like the taste. Everything that is extra beyond food, water and shelter is something to be grateful about.
It seems that there is only a hollow entitlement for others that is truly outside of the Tao.
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