What we say

Yesterday I drove downtown to a book store and bought a copy of the Dao De Jing for my grand-daughter. (She might be interested.) 

I had to look at several versions of the Dao De Jing; every translation is different. The text was written in ancient Chinese symbols. What the symbols had meant 2,400 years ago is somewhat unclear. 

Uncertainty seems appropriate given the first sentence, which I suspect is the single sentence read by the most people on our planet, read by nearly all the Chinese, most other Asians and some of the rest of us. 

Very roughly, the first sentence goes, "The Dao we call the Dao is not the eternal Dao."

That resembles Rene Magritte's "The Treachery of Images,"  also known as "This Is Not a Pipe."  A portrait of a pipe is not a pipe, and a recipe for an omelet is not an omelet. 

The author starts by telling us that seeking wisdom begins with learning the following. What we say about the world and the world itself are not the same and not constant. 

The author's goal, I think, is to help readers become less aggressive. If language is uncertain, we should be uncertain.  He begins with linguistic philosophy. Or maybe not.

Out At Last

Last night reports said that Sen. Lindsay Graham had died, and I believe he is dead. But what about Mitch McConnell? Last week he died in a hospital, and his wife flew off for an important meeting in China. Now she has returned. Is Sen. McConnell still dead? I don't think so. 

Balogun

Later this afternoon Belgium and the United States meet in a knockout soccer game in the big tournament. 

America's best scorer, Balogun, had been given a red card in the prior game, which made him ineligible for this game. But FIFA, the soccer organization, changed its mind at the last minute and allowed Balogun to participate. How this came about is unclear, but maybe it was because Donald Trump and FIFA, two utterly corrupt actors, made an agreement. 

First, and I am speaking as a one-time useless soccer coach, Balogun did not commit a foul and should not have been given a red card. Nearly everyone agrees. 

Second, FIFA and Trump should not be corrupt.

Third, the Belgium team leaders should not have tried to keep their opponent's best scorer off the field. You need a skilled opponent to play soccer. You should want the opponent to be at its best. There is no glory in knocking off weakened teams. 

Balogun, by the way, is actually British but also a birthright citizen of the USA.

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Soloists

The problem with concertos is how they start. You buy your ticket and you find a seat, and then you wait. You wait some more. You came to hear the soloist, right? But instead of starting with the world-famous soloist, the concerto begins with long minutes of the whole orchestra banging away, making you wait. 

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Horsemanship

Susan and I frequently watch Heather Cox Richardson's daily podcast, in which she explains, as historians will do, the news and its contexts. She's great, but she said something that annoyed me a few weeks back.

Cox claimed that among American presidents, the best horseman was probably Ronald Reagan.

I don't know how long Reagan stayed in a saddle, but I doubt if he was comparable to the Founding Fathers. Many of them rode horses every day. That's how they got around. 

For absolute best presidential horseman, most historians choose U.S. Grant. He set a high jump record at West Point. Grant had great technical skills. Washington and Teddy Roosevelt were also adept.

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Going With The Flow

Long ago I read an article about which sentence has been read by the most people over the centuries. I don't recall the winning sentence, but I didn't agree with the outcome. 

Probably no one knows the right answer, but I have a candidate for the most-read sentence. I started by assuming the sentence would be in Chinese and be known to every Chinese person and most Asians and some of the rest of us.  

My choice had first been written in ancient Chinese symbols, which lend themselves to multiple meanings and translations. Here is an example:  "The Dao that can be spoken of is not the ever- constant Dao." 

That's the first line of the Dao De Jing.  A variation might be, "The Dao we call the Dao is not the constant Dao." 

What "the Dao" meant 2400 years ago remains uncertain, but in part the sentence is apparently commenting on the nature of language. There is a difference between a process and the name we give the process. 

Consider Rene Magritte's painting of a pipe, called "The Treachery of Images" and also known as "This Is Not A Pipe."

So what does "Dao" mean? It means something that cannot be exactly defined in words, maybe something like "constantly changing natural processes." A central Daoist message might be, "Be spontaneous and don't fight Mother Nature."

Wittgenstein pointed out that words with cloudy meanings have an important role in language. Take the word "love." As a songwriter wrote, "You don't know what love is." 

You can experience love but not define it exactly.

 

Mahler

Do you know what's embarrassing? To discover Mahler when you're 91.

Killing People

As he ages, Donald Trump has been on a killing spree, ranging from schoolgirls in Iran to anyone in a small boat near Venezuela. But recently he signed a tentative peace discussion agreement with the leaders of Iran.

Ronny Cheing has asked us to praise Trump for this act of leadership. Trump lost the war, of course--I can see that--but what he seeks is validation that he is a towering military genius. He would be comparing himself to Robert E. Lee, if Lee had not been such a loser.

If we praise Trump's amazing and total victory in Iran, he may not start bombing again. This would leave quite a few Iranian families intact. 

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Courage

Looking back on nearly 92 years, what am I proud of? Well, one thing is that I had the courage not use chapstick. I toughed it out.

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