@wackJackle

Laotzi's idea of steering a process with minimal intervention, based on responding to emerging developments before they become manifest. Also the basis for a secular explanation of the I Ching: it helps us detect elements of the situation that otherwise remain hidden.

Joseph A Adler has written extensively on how this theme was developed in the various traditions in China between 600 BCE and 1200 CE. A thinker called Xhu Xi, for instance, wrote this in 1188 CE:

"Incipiencies, or the subtle indications of activity, lie between desiring to act and imminent activity, where there is both good [apt choice] and evil [futile choice]. One must understand them at this point. If they reach the point of becoming manifest [they are already set in motion], then one can [no longer] help anything... ."

I sense the same emphasis on detecting the possible in the present in your quote.

Quote from p12 of: https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Writings/Zhu%20Xi%20and%20Yi.pdf

#incipiencies #ZhuXi #JA_Adler

@wackJackle

Wisdom!

"Time lies behind us, contingency before us. We realise their union in the present."

[Free translation. I appreciate that my second sentence doesn't quite capture the subtleties of the Hegelian "aufheben". I also sense a resonance with the Taoist notion of "incipiencies".]

#time #TheMoment #incipiencies #ji #幾

@RonaldTooTall

"Freedom isn't about some great escape or the pusuit of some grand purpose. It is about letting go of the need for both."

Profound reflections on The Way, thank you.

#Zhuangzhi and #Laozi: these texts have accompsnied me through many crises in my life. They helped me realise myself as part of a flow that crushes all self-set targets and mission statements, a flow that demands open-minded attention to the potentialities of the given moment: the "incipiencies" (chi) of the I-Ching.

You are right to contrast such attentiveness with the pressure in corporate social media to build one's self as a "brand".

May I draw a parallel to Fediverse culture? At its best, it supports quiet, non-viral exchanges of mutually resonating posts, where each participant picks up some small facets of the world that they previously had blocked out. The antithesis of "influencer" culture, where each participant pushes their own unchanged vain goals

#Tao #incipiencies #MastodonCulture