210125 What I learned in my studies this morning

Today's Tao:

In the pursuit of learning, something is acquired every day. 

In the pursuit of the Tao, every day something is relinquished. 

Less and less is done 

Until non-action is achieved. 

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. 

The world is governed by letting things take their course. 

It cannot be governed through interference.

From The Daily Stoic: 

Learn what is truly to be desired and you will be satisfied without the need for expensive things and flashy belongings. 

“What’s left to be prized? This, I think— to limit our action or inaction to only what’s in keeping with the needs of our own preparation . . . it’s what the exertions of education and teaching are all about— here is the thing to be prized! If you hold this firmly, you’ll stop trying to get yourself all the other things. . . . If you don’t, you won’t be free, self -sufficient, or liberated from passion, but necessarily full of envy, jealousy, and suspicion for any who have the power to take them, and you’ll plot against those who do have what you prize. . . . But by having some self-respect for your own mind and prizing it, you will please yourself and be in better harmony with your fellow human beings, and more in tune with the gods— praising everything they have set in order and allotted you.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.16.2b–4a

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Unifying Agents:

Imitation 

Imitativeness is a boon and a curse for the Movement. Not only does it impel cohesion, but it also admits to corruption if outside elements are copied into the unity.  The unity will as readily imitate the Other Side as their own. 

All Movements carry within them the admonition to abjure foreign thoughts and behaviors. 

“Whoever copies a foreigner is guilty of lèsenation (an insult to the nation) like a spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.” (The Italian minister of education in 1926. Quoted by Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals) 

Hatred, covered in the previous section, is the preferred method of dealing with outside influences. (Contempt is better suited for insular tribes of believers who are more cohesive and separated from others.) what is foreign is branded blasphemy and treason. 

(The True Believer, XIV-82)