210103 What I learned in my studies this morning

Today's Tao:

Ever true and resourceful, Return to the state of the uncarved block. 

When the block is carved, it becomes useful. 

When the wise use it, they become rulers. 

Thus, “A great tailor makes few cuts.”

From The Daily Stoic: 

We waste our lives, the time we are given, in fruitless pursuits. Whether it's the activity we don't want to do, the people we don't want to be around, the emotions we don't want to feel, or any of the other Ten Thousand Things, we give away our one irreplaceable resource — time — to things that aren't worth it. 

Learn to say no. 

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Factors Promoting Self-Sacrifice, Make-Believe:

Fanaticism 

Fanatics are extremely unlikely to be able to shift from being part of the Movement to being an individual. They were already failing in self-sufficiency and inner drive when they joined the Cause. What makes you think they could Pivot back to the same failures they were experiencing before? 

They are much more likely to be consumed by another Movement, so long as they receive communion with the group and strict directions about how to live. 

The dogma is unimportant. The connection and sublimation of their selves is. 

It is doubtful whether the fanatic who deserts his holy cause or is suddenly left without one can ever adjust himself to an autonomous individual existence. He remains a homeless hitch-hiker on the highways of the world thumbing a ride on any eternal cause that rolls by.

What matters is not the contents of the cause but the total dedication and the communion with a congregation.

(The True Believer, XIII-63)