Dear Andrew and LO'ers
When you wrote:
> The treadmill may well ;-) be a prodigious part of our soul Daan.
> Conceiving so much more than we can accomplish, so that
> whoever trying his own actions by his imagination (as I see you
> restlessly doing right now) , may well appear to him/herself
> despicable in his/her own eyes (you me both and.)
> What sad waste, those years? Mmmmmmm.
my first impression was of empathy, for which I thank you. But as I am
learning (!) with respect to your posts, I also have to ponder second
and third meanings. Which do not always come easy.
Andrew, you then continued with:
> There came upon the dear Dr Johnson a period of decay and
> desertion ;-) unto and into himself outward projecting, like night
> wrapped around seen from a tower. From atop which you share
> with me and fellows male and female accounts of waterjouneys and
> stillednesses like so many minded passages and now you have
> come upon your own glimpsed 'kingdom come' and I think each
> watercourse will offer new reflectivity. In a place of reflections
> I am guided by the good doctor and lexicographer in a seadom
> of words to say "Gnothi seauton", "Be aquainted with thyself".
which (I think?) tells me that you understand the deep (again, as
previously, literal and magnitude, not metaphorical) introvert's
inclination to introspection and compulsion to get to grips with the
hidden corners of the dark, in addition to the reflections of light
that make things bearable. It would seem Dr. Johnson also knew that
one can but become acquainted with oneself, and that full knowledge is
either impossible, or undesirable as being too destructive.
That one needs a distinction between "the self that acts and is and
the self that watches" and one wonders how many are really aware of
the watcher and for how many the watcher is the only one of the two
who is real?? In which case there is no longer (??) tension between
known and knower - just 'it' and 'me' - and then the dark can become
comfortable, so that there is no urge to blow it away.
Yet, I want to return to "What sad waste, those years? Mmmmmmm." and
link that your reference to " . . . your own glimpsed 'kingdom come' .
. . ".
It has often puzzled me, "Why me?". What are the reasons why I
stumbled across a formal definition of management, one that is so easy
to find and so concise to frame and so much a matter of "Do unto
others . . ."?
Surely it cannot be because students of management were never
interested in defining their field of study? That would be too poor
science to believe, unless they fully accepted a paradigm of
"management as art" and thus liquid, dynamic and therefore
undefinable. Which is not really supported by the facts.
Can it be that principled and very religious businessmen, probably of
all persuasions, have never really tried to formulate their business
practices and philosophy in terms of their own version of the Golden
Rule? Again hard to accept.
This brings me to consider that those "wasted years" might have served
a purpose, in some manner not immediately clear. Perhaps a cleansing
of the mind, dissolving all preconceptions - probably over a much
wider front than mere business, or management - leaving a stillness (a
reflectivity?) that was receptive to the ripples that came my way when
I became concerned over the problem why the experts in Academe and in
the field never came up with a definition of what management should be
all about. And was changed.
Whatever.
Andrew, you ended with:
"The sound of the water
says what I think."
Chuang-tzu 6, tr. Fung Yu-lan (3) p. 113, mod, auct.
(The Watercourse Way. Alan Watts and Al Chung-Liang Huang
and
> All is Strange,
> Yet Nothing New.
> A Way of Waater;-)
Yes. Yess!
Thank you and bless you.
daan
PS I am trying!
Daan Joubert
This time with humility and gratitude
Roodepoort
South Africa
--Daan Joubert <daanj@kingsley.co.za>
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