learning

A Word to the Wise?

“A word to the wise” is a good maxim, but flawed I’m afraid to say. I’ve always liked how D.C. Lau phrased the last characters of the first line of chapter 51: Circumstances bring them to maturity. It’s true, albeit not what the actual character’s say. What is it about circumstances that bring us to […]

Loss is Gain; Gain is Loss

The reason this title, “Loss is Gain; Gain is Loss”, may sound ridiculous is that we are biologically set up to respond positively to gain and negatively to loss. Chapter 58’s, It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches attempts to show how entangled gain and loss […]

Feeling Animal-ness

We know humans are animals, biologically speaking. Yet do we really feel we are? In reality, there is a wide gap between our abstract knowledge and our visceral experience. Catching the flu for the “first” time in my life may offer an example of how thought can separate us from fully feeling our animal-ness. Assuming […]

You Know

More than once, I’ve voiced the view that we tend to put the cart before the horse when it comes to learning, understanding, and knowing. Over the last few years, I’ve become relatively convinced that we only truly understand and learn what we already know intuitively. My suspicions began during our home schooling days as […]

So, I’d like to ask…

A Centertao member asked me if I had any life advice for a man approaching 30. Immediately, too much came to my mind for that question! All I could do was turn the question over to my subconscious. Oddly, I find not thinking about a tricky issue is the best way to resolve it. Not […]

Learning What You Know

In recent years, I’ve realized there is more to meet the eye when it comes to learning, understanding, and knowing. Perhaps, as chapter 14 says, These three cannot be fathomed, and so they are confused and looked upon as one. A few days ago, I was having a discussion with my wife and our son […]

Teachers and Students

Teachers and students are interdependent. You can’t have one without the other. Society admires the teachers, especially the esteemed professors, gurus, or senseis (xiansheng 先生). In reality, students are the more important part of the equation. After all, teachers can lead students to water, but only the students’ thirst determines whether they’ll drink. As chapter […]

Innately Ethical

Chapter 38’s A man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue served as a model for raising my sons. Yet, given their Taoist upbringing, it is odd to see how rigidly law abiding they are at times. For example, we headed down the street to order […]

Skip links

learning