210130 What I learned in my studies this morning

Today's Tao:

If I have even just a little sense, 

I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. 

Keeping to the main road is simple, 

But people are easily distracted.

From The Daily Stoic: 

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself.”—Epictetus, Enchridion, 13a

Learn to say, "I don't know" or, better yet, "I don't care." 

Aside: the look on people's faces when you tell them, genuinely, that you don't care about whatever issue enraging them today . . . priceless. 

I do this with almost all politics (save for occasionally mocking it) and with almost all "news" as well. This habit has served me well for several years now. It keeps me calm and better able to focus on the task at hand. 

Re-read today's Tao. See how it applies. Now make that your life. 

From Eric Hoffer, Part III, Unifying Agents:

Persuasion and Coercion 

Fanaticism, if limited to individuals, is not enough to change a Movement. There must be a pervasive faith to either sustain it or to alter / oppose it. 

Alternate faith is a powerful counterweapon when used to back by the force arrayed against a Movement. 

The assertion that a mass movement cannot be stopped by force is not literally true. Force can stop and crush even the most vigorous movement. But to do so the force must be ruthless and persistent. And here is where faith enters as an indispensable factor. For a persecution that is ruthless and persistent can come only from fanatical conviction.

... 

“But as soon as force wavers and alternates with forbearance, not only will the doctrine to be repressed recover again and again, but it will also be in a position to draw new benefit from every persecution.”

(The True Believer, XIV-87)