liminal_luke

I don´t have a neidan teacher or lineage but am happy to sit on the sidelines. If such a forum facilitates useful communication among dedicated practitioners, surely that´s a good thing. Importantly, I would still be able to read the forum posts. (At least I think so?) Such reading might prove very educational. If I want to join the tennis team, I´ll have a better idea what tennis requires and how I might get lessons. Nothing would be closed to me.

With real maple syrup?

TMH (@thememoryhole): "Viktor Frankl on the Importance of Overestimating People"

Me: “Please bring me a screwdriver.” Wife: “Flat head, Phillips, or vodka?” And that was when I knew she was the one -- Derek Pharr

Austin Kleon — Photo by Mark Meth Cohn from The Nikon Comedy...

My favorite high school English teacher had a plaque on her desk sporting the words illegetimi non carborundum. She was an unusually self-possessed person, someone who took that motto to heart. I´ve since read that the phrase isn´t actually proper Latin but it does come in handy from time to time, especially here on the forum and elsewhere online.

I missed my calling -- shoulda been a journalist. When writing for English-speaking audiences, I never accidently slip into foreign tongues, and certainly not Latin. Well, maybe a phrase or two for "texture and color" -- porque no? -- but never an entire paragraph.

The world is entirely perfect and complete, with the exception of this thread.

The skidding motorcycle gets to the heart of things: motorcyclists with good control live longer. But one does not learn such control by being controlling -- at least not in the oppress-a-child I´m-the-master-of-the-universe sense of the word. Vehicular control is a matter of responding precisely to external conditions. We can´t necessarigly change conditions as they arise, but we can dance with them skillfully. There´s a lot of humility and surrender in the dance; it´s in allowing things to be as they are -- and then acting appropriately -- that control is achieved.

Since my inhibitory impulses are out of control, I´ll take the Devil´s Advocate position and say that control is usually illusory, overrated, often desired and seldom achieved. The whole idea of control is perhaps misconception Numero Uno. Seems to me that the more we try to be in control and less we are. If control is possible at all, I think it requires humility and surrender, requires us, in short, to be less and less controlling.