I bet it distills down to “you do you because people are gonna hate anyway.” But that’s just my guess.
Courageous!
It’s a weird book. It’s done in platonic dialogue style, Japanese tone, and Adlerian psychoanalysis.
Even if it’s a pile of shit I’m interested to see how they navigate/fuse together these different factors.
Sounds interesting indeed.
One that was helpful to me was a little pamphlet essentially, written by a Buddhist monk named Thich Nat Hanh, called “How to Fight”.
Simple, and applicable.
So, how is one to fight?
Lots of thoughts, but part of it is differentiating our emotional response to an event from the event itself. Seeing our feelings as real, and seeing the event as also real, but noticing the event wasn’t directly responsible for the reaction, that the expression of strong emotion is often a projection of our emotions into a person or event.
Also “telling the truth skilfully” is the practice of expressing things in a way that the person to whom you’re talking can hear you.
So instead of “you’re being a fucking idiot” we might say “you did x and I don’t think you considered how that would affect y”.
Basically “fighting” to express and to communicate rather than to win, defend and dominate.
“Fighting” defined as achieving the goal against opposition, a goal other than direct forceful dominance. This is a very Japanese approach to things.
Yeah, Hanh is Vietnamese, so has some interesting takes on conflict.
We tent to think conflict = bad and I don’t agree.
Conflict is essential, is going to happen, and more importantly is going to happen between you and people you care about.
What you’re saying makes sense. I’d call it productive fighting. Mrs Foreigner and I “fight” but we try to do so I’m a civilized manner even if that means “don’t talk to me for 5 minutes we will have this discussion once I’ve calmed down.”
Productive fighting. I don’t care who’s wrong I just want to fix the problem.
I rationally agree that conflict isn’t bad, but tell that to my body when I’m in the midst of it!
We as westerners are generally ignorant of ourselves, how and why the mind/emotions/body interact. Unfortunately self awareness is desperately fought by materialistic cultures.
Yeah, because enlightenment tells us we don’t need the things that keep the economy humming 
Genau! Lol
I think that’s a good word to use, because ignorance connotes “not knowing what you don’t know”. To be ignorant is to be in a place where you don’t even know that there is a question to ask.
We’ve literally been trained that this status quo is the only way and there are no alternatives… though I hope that sentiment continues to unravel as it appears to be doing
There a current debate up here about allowing 11th grade students to start training in skilled grades and still graduate with a high school diploma.
Nothing wrong with skilled trades.
But it’s being sold as our economy will be short on skilled trades in the near future.
Is the school system designed for you, with your best interests in mind, or is it more concerned with stimulating the economy?
These things are not mutually exclusive and not necessarily a win win I just thought it was interesting.
It tells us it’s more important to spend our time with our family and friends than cranking out widgets too.
Friends and family are of secondary importance to your mill foreman. It fact, nobody gets to have a family, it slows work down too much.
Gentleman, this has been a great discussion to pair with my morning tea and bowl, but it’s time for me to go join the day.
Much respect to both of you, I’m sure we’ll do it again soon.
Gives a whole new vibe now!
me too brother. ADD too, but that’s a side effect of my preferred medicine:grin:
I think that that type of courage for me came with older age. I could wear striped pants and a checkered shirt to a store and not think twice about it, lol. Thankfully, I don’t. I much prefer knickers and a wife beater t shirt. ( not really)
Spell check got you. Skilled trades…
I think it would do this country wonders if we had the apprentice system going again. I always joke that I was taught carpentry by a carpenter that taught himself. The only way to build on the skills of the previous generation is if they are showing the next generation all the tricks. Due to the apprentice system disappearing, so is our talent.
Most Carpenters that are self employed don’t want to teach the tricks to their workers because once they learn them, they leave and go off on their own, often LONG before they are ready, and the customer and the former employer suffers.
We are short now. Very short