The Boulevards of Extinction. Andrew Benson Brown

chaos and melody, waters crashing over land and air settling to earth, it is deaf to the need to keep the home hearths lit, to the vigilance that is always ready to risk war to make peace last. If the sage had only whispered, or shouted. But then he would betray himself. So he just stands, an inimitable paragon.

      Lao Tzu

      To write one of the world’s greatest books, and not even exist: the most fully actualized author is the one who lives only on paper, a dream of his own creation.

      That Lao Tzu didn’t exist—what a trite observation! The real point is that all those warring-states writers jotting Taoist poems thought he did and consciously imitated him, writing only what he himself would have written. Like the Jewish scribes of the Old Testament, they were vessels for the spirit of Lao Tzu; their creative acts were his creative acts. The fanciful being behind such texts, whether man or god, becomes a social fact upon being imagined by a club of admirers.

      Publishing companies have recently discovered the benefits of caricaturing the method of the early Taoists: instead of attributing the financially risky work of their fledgling novelists to some legendary wise man, they choose a bestselling thriller writer. It is the first instance of evolution in authorship since the Old Master: after myth becomes man, man becomes industry. James Patterson is the only literary Over-Soul. As there is a difference between one and another hour of life, so with every subsequent serialization.

      Aesop

      Aesop used beasts to represent common human qualities; I will use humans to represent exceptions to the prevalent beastly ones—only the higher monsters of our nature are suited to furnish lessons. Which exception is represented will be a moral subject to interpretation.

      Seneca

      No matter how bad things get in comparison with how good I have it, I continue to maintain a stoical acceptance—of the periodic conflagration of the world. Philosophy is not just the more prosperous half of self-enrichment: destruction is the cradle of redemption.

      Marcus Aurelius

      With Confucius’s dilemma representing the chief grudge of the practical philosopher, history bears few instances of its opposite: of one lucky enough to have power—and not merely by seizing it or climbing up the bureaucracy, but being raised up for it so as to wield it with all the naturalness of a fifth limb, a master appendage—without wanting it, of a man who yearns to withdraw from life in order to think at rest. The chief value of a creative work resulting from such a situation, therefore, comes to lie in the possession of the very thing its creator resented: an inside view on the vanity of absolute power. One wonders whether Confucius or Plato would not have become similarly disillusioned upon their own triumph, appending murmurs of resignation to grand conceptions. Or what of the thinker who was never utopian to begin with, one who grounds an axiom of ruthlessness because of his failure in practical life? Would Machiavelli in the service of Lorenzo the Micronificent have turned his cruelty upon himself? One has only to look at Seneca, Boethius, or More to see their work as a compensation for their lives, gentle inversions of the brutal conclusion of thought successfully diverted by ambition; or, conversely, to see their lives as the logical inevitability of their work, with every utopian dream spawning a frightening reality and any attempt at highbrow consolation twisted into agony by a cord around the forebrow. If democracy is the only form of government which blames itself for its decline, the empire of the philosopher is the only one that declares guilt over its success.

      Nagarjuna

      Analysis of Truth

      Meditation leaves behind assumptions,

      Then builds a house of dogma,

      Inviting the assumptions back

      To place them on the welcome mat.

      Analysis of the Meditator

      When the meditator appears,

      The thoughtless ones will rule.

      How? By cutting out reasoning

      Intuition unites enlightened and stupid.

      Analysis of Nalanda’s Destruction

      Nalanda was burned down.

      For fuel, the Muslim invaders used Buddhist monks.

      An enlightened monk perceives not-self.

      All monks used as fuel achieved not-self.

      Burned monks were fuel before not-selves.

      As fuel, they differed from fire.

      As not-selves, they did not differ from fire.

      Burned monks were fuel and fire.

      Fire that is the same as fuel cannot arise.

      Fire different from fuel can arise without fuel.

      Fuel cannot burn, fire burns without cause.

      Burning monks could not connect fuel and fire.

      How, then, was Nalanda burned?

      When it was established.

      The meditator who established it perceived not-self.

      Nalanda no land a.

      Erasmus

      It is possible to go even further than simultaneously celebrating what you denigrate: to not celebrate while also not denigrating. A parallel non-preference. Rather than straddling the line claiming both territories, the neutrality of tiptoeing within its breadth. But the ambiguity here is deeper: each “not” coexisting inside a hair’s length, which one is the more greatly favored? With a slippage of word choice leading to praise or blame, and inconsistency inevitable, what inclination will the tongue trips display? The opposite problem of Folly’s overselection—of wide ambitions combined with universal reservations—is that even when a man succeeds in flattening his desires on the anvil, extraordinary discipline in doubting is still required. This is no mere treaty drawn up by Swedes. One is not a spectator to warring factions, but an armed border patrol—and the most likely invader is not Houyhnhnms or Yahoos, but the guard himself. Neither nationalist nor expatriate, he is a victim of conscious indecision and unwitting prejudice.

      Gracián

      Lock yourself away in a cell before the first book. Conceal your depths—this is one of the best pieces of advice ever given. The Jesuit was his own greatest example of how brandishing his talent to the world brought him a heap of trouble. A guide to life, like statecraft, should be contrary to what those of common sense would actually advise—to be good; nor should it just take note of what everyone really does—observe evil; it should, instead, recommend the exception—what few advise or enact. This strategy ensures that the author’s true thoughts on the matter will leak through only indirectly, without any pretense of expecting that people either can change for the better or will achieve self-enlightenment upon reading about their irremediable badness. One gives counsel not to change readers—there is no reason to act otherwise unless you can be otherwise. Nor does the counselor merely guide them towards their destiny—there are some cynics who take advice’s role to be the harbinger of blame, ensuring that the dread and bitterness escorting the failure of choice will summon the hammer and whittle it into the gavel. One instead gives advice simply to show others what they are not doing and will not do. The author himself is no exception to this. The wisest sages lack the discipline to hone their wisdom—they hide their depths from themselves.

      Lady Conway

      Several female thinkers who died in undeserved obscurity and never had a chance to impact the philosophy of their day have been recently rediscovered. But it is not enough to simply appreciate their ideas within their proper historical context; we must fill in the intervening centuries and punish our paradigms for such long-lapsed judgment: to really appreciate Lady Conway we must resurrect her vitalist principles. What might our theories look like today if we had taken her into account? Not enough to rely on Leibniz’s hidden influence; anonymity needs a name. With the esoteric mysticism of the Lurianic Kabbalah mixed with the directness