Blog 8(2) Way of life

It was not until recently I read a book on philosophy that I got preliminary understanding of what I would go through and what I should do in future. Though the target of life never seems obscure to me, and I have an outline for coming life and a schedule for daily life, I agree that my understanding of life is not deep enough to reach a higher level, therefore it is ‘preliminary’—I still have a long way to go.

Now let me introduce what the book says. There are three stages of one’s life. The first stage is in which one can not distinguish between himself/herself and the object or the environment he/she encounters. The person, often a small child, lives in a natural way that every action from him/her is not purposely. Follows the second stage in which one can clearly tell himself/herself apart from others and the environment, and does something for an aim. We should remark that each stage, including the following third stage does not happen in one’s life separately. They may concur in one’s life. For instance, a man can work for earning bread for his family. In that way he does something purposely, being in the second stage. He can also simply walk home leisurely without an apparent intention(though he is to return home, he would forget the distance and the aim, simply enjoy walking), in which he is in the first stage. Now it’s really complicated. The more complicated one—the third stage ensues. For common people, seldom does an individual reach the third stage in his/her life. Even if one touches the threshold of this enigmatic stage, it is usually momentary and vanishes without trace.

The third stage of one’s life comes when after one realizes the difference between self and others or the environment, he/she transcends this notion which restricts his/her behavior but finally is overcame by him/her in some way. That is to say, one returns being natural, but different from being natural because he/she has gone through being unnatural and gradually extricates himself/herself from the constraint.

To illustrate these enigmatic conceptions, consider the steps of learning English. Firstly we learn English because we are taught to learn English. And we learn when we were not aware of the importance of English. Then grades in exam demonstrate the importance of English. After we came here, exams burden us no severely as before, but we still endeavor to learn English because it concerns whether we can communicate with others. We try as possible to memorize words and apply them into essays and daily conversations. Then, it will become a portion of ourselves. Like Chinese, English comes out of our mouth without the slightest efforts. Gradually and finally, we reach the third stage.

Life goes the same way. One can say Tao Yuanming, the famous idyllist, was murmuring in his poems, complaining his unfortunate and pretending to be out of the secular world. The other one can also say that he let his mind flow freely with the pace of nature. The first one is mundane and his/her mind has been covered with dust, therefore, he/she cannot understand the mindset of Tao. Perhaps throughout this miserable person’s life, he/she could never enter in the world where his/her mind could swing with all the living things. In contrast, the second one is a little more sapient, though this person may still linger in the second stage and may not be a person like Tao.

I recalled a blog written by cute boy, Mr. Triton. He talked about happiness and I wondered that when we intentionally pursue for happiness, whether we could obtain the real happiness. I thought now that we have unavoidably transformed from a child into a young adult, we could be glad as before, but not be as happy as a child. And I argued that the more we desired a childlike mind, the further we were away from it because I thought a truly child mind could never be intentionally achieved.

However, the book points out the possibility. The way is unknown, maybe it depends on different people. Since I don’t know a lot, I have to make an end for this part hastily.

The most amazing thing I recognized was the perpetual law: deny of deny. In syntax, there is no difference between the outcome of deny of deny and the original word. Nonetheless, in the journey of life, the life after deny of deny(the third stage) is totally different from the original one(the first stage). It is a brand new stage where one stands on the vertex of life and could overlook all the other things.

And may one day I am able to reach the condition that Laozi once depicted: Aim to do things without aim.