52ing into 2025 (five-pack six+Books that Matter: The Analects+Confucius: And the World He Created)
squawking about the old guy
Here are the last couple of Inktober 52's from 2024 and the first three for the new year.
,
realities
wrapped
in
the
enigma
I tried going with a square for this is play on "enigma wrapped in a riddle". The corners felt awkward so I went to the old standby—a big circle.
,
zombies cross the finish line
Always a little scary to give up control, letting gravity have a say.
I'm not sure if outlining was better or worse. It makes it a bit cartoonish, less bloody.
,
quiet
sunrise
quells
murky
shades
The pointed brush and copperplate cursive came together in "sunrise". I'm unhappy with my dip pen copperplate—it needs a ton more practice to look good for these 5WP's. But all that December work set me up for pretty good cursive with the pointed brush.
So it worked out after all. Shouldn't plan too much for these these creative meanderings. Just peek far enough to keep doing.
,
perky
shrimp
pound
pearly
xylophones
After finding the big concept, one must still wrestle with a bunch of little decisions. It turned out the last slant was best.
,
tick tock
yesterday
transforms
tomorrow
I finally learned how to properly spell "tomorrow".
,
I can't believe we're 8% through the year!
Cya next time!
,
PS—Books that Matter: The Analects of Confucius, Robert Andre LaFleur, Great Courses, 2018
This excellent audio course covered the Analects and its outgrowth in Chinese history. It provides a conceptual framework for reading the text as a series of conversations between the teacher and his students. LaFleur then covers key themes, such as filial piety and remonstrance, and finally closes with a discussion of Confucius's long legacy in China and East Asia.
After four years, it might be time to revisit this course. Like most Westerners, I have an affinity with quirky individualism of Daoism as a reaction against fundamentalist Christianity. However the ideas centering social relationships and mutual bonds as discussed in this lecture series are attractive, especially as our nation continues to rattle itself apart with irresponsible leaders and citizens.
Beyond these lectures, just finding this course is a reminder of how much info is just out there. Here's a free 12 hour lecture series! what else is hiding on Overdrive? And the library's physical stacks? Add Kanopy.com and the publisher's own streaming service? Finally podcasts and YouTube!
I wonder what Confucius would say about drowning ourselves with information.
,
PPS-Confucius: And the World He Created, Dan Schulman, 2015
This book was a good rejoinder to the Great Courses lecture series, which had taken a positive spin on the philosophy. This book focused on the real-world history of Confucianism, which was quite detrimental by the end of China's imperial age.
Such is the fate of any philosophy that becomes calcified. American Christianity's obsession with being right has created an political religion that has forsaken Jesus' true core of love. The ineffable concept of the dao became a collection of wild superstitions in religious Taoism. And the vision of a well ordered society metastasized into a harsh top-down hierarchy that perpetuated stagnation and cruelty.
These loose philosophies started out kindly enough but lost their heart as they became systematized. Certainty killed the animating force that gave them life.
An organized religion builds a magnificent intellectual edifice by losing the point. One must always be free to pick what works today and ignores that which is irrelevant to the moment.
For that reason, I suspect Confucianism is making a comeback. With the destruction of the formal, governing, imperial ideology, the writings of Confucius and Mencius are available for a fresh rereading. It took two centuries of chaos in Asia to exorcise the old ghost of Confucianism. Master Kong is free to ascend again.
Schulman notes in his epilogue that we are at a crossroads where Confucius can be used to help form an orderly rich society. Or maybe it becomes the bedrock for a new authoritarianism. Let's just hope we don't screw it up as badly as last time.
,
PPPS-Practice, red to salmon
Your calligraphy continues to surprise me. You've pushed way beyond what I have usually seen of others' work. Bravo!
True was you say about how formalizing a religious philosophy calcifies it. That is certainly true of American Christianity. Some, it seems, have taken the song, Onward Christian Soldiers, seriously and it's become frightening in the extreme.
Years ago, I joined the Baha'i Faith and was not only drawn by its teachings of unity, but also its seeming free-style, small community structure. The more I delved into it, however, the more I realized it was also becoming, after only about 150+ years, a systemized organization. The American community, I believe, has a way of doing this with religions. The Persians who grew up Baha'i in Iran before coming to America, were more informal in their own elegant way with the Faith. The American leadership, on the other hand, made five-year plans for growing the numbers of members and groups and urged members to dedicate their lives to teaching and fostering growth. (How American! Manifest Destiny lives.) In doing so, it felt like the essence of the Faith had started to corrode and was becoming buried in administrivia.