De Confucio: Cat Scratch Fever

Cat Scratch Fever by Franklin Bruno is what ultimately turned me on to Confucius. If you listen really hard, you might notice this song has nothing to do with Confucius.

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I am 178 centimetres tall, but tell me right now, does that mean a thing to anyone?

"Oh yeah, I'm 185 cm, lil' buddy!"

Try something: without standing up, imagine where 178 centimetres from the ground might be. Put your hand there, if you can.

Which is easier to imagine, two-and-a-half million litres, or an Olympic swimming pool?

How many words have I written so far in this post?

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You might be listening to music right now. In a piece of music, there is a certain difference in pitch between each note, and each specific difference has its own name. A perfect fifth is made when a note is played, then a second note is played that vibrates at a frequency 1.5 times as fast as the first note's frequency. Can you please try singing that for me?

Perhaps you're familiar with the main theme of Star Wars? Can you hum the first two notes of it? (Not including the first five or so seconds of introduction. The primary melody.) That's called a perfect fifth.

In Seaport at Sunset, do you think Claude Lorrain measured each individual figure in the painting? Maybe he has a specific formula written down for producing the colour of sunset? If you had all this information at your disposal, could you paint something like this?

Did Shakespeare use a metronome to keep his lines mostly iambic?

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When someone already has experience with an art, it is indeed useful to dive into the technical side of things. However, someone who knows nothing will not become an artist by reading long scientific essays on painting or music. 

The same is true for all aspects of human life. People don't see things as numbers and values and measurements. Then what do they see them as? I can't say, but I know for certain it's not something easily expressed on paper or using mathematical formulas. Words work because there is a special, unknown process that connects the word with whatever the hearer is supposed to understand by the word. The word itself doesn't actually mean anything, but we have all gotten so used to getting certain ideas and images out of certain arrangements of words that we can't not comprehend the ideas and images when we hear the words they're associated with. It's the ideas and images that mean something to us, not the sound of the words.

No one needs an English grammar to speak proper English. Through some strange process, if someone hears and tries to speak enough proper English, with time, he'll be speaking proper English (whatever that might be). I'll admit: I have no idea what this process is, but it's obviously there.

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I must confess: I haven't actually read Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. I think what follows still applies; please tell me if I'm wrong. 

Kant's ethics are complex. They're more or less a series of principles for deriving what exact rules one should live by.

However, no one can adequately refer to the Categorical Imperative before he does something that may or may not be wrong. If someone does try to practice Kantian Ethics, he's only practising a simpler, easily comprehended variation of them. This is still better than acting however one feels at a given moment. With enough time, a system will eventually be internalized to deal with certain moral dilemmas; however this shouldn't be confused with Kant's Ethics.

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There's a part of me, 
size of a tangerine.
[Unintelligible] 
They took it out of me.

The surgeon said, You'll be fine
the mass we removed was completely benign.
Don't get cocky, 
because you might not be so lucky, 
next time.

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Very few people seem comfortable with the idea of cybernetic implants or anything of the sort. Why? If you just look at things rationally, there's no problem!

Yes, that may be true. But I can't accept that. No one can accept that. From the pit of my being, my heart of hearts, I can't bear the idea of being part machine, no matter how logical people's arguments for it may be.

Franklin Bruno was sick. He went to the doctor, who told him he had to get surgery. A part of him was removed. Who cares? His life isn't affected in any measurable way.

But a part of him is still gone. I may not get, you may not understand, measurements and logic may contradict it, but he knows this is inherently wrong. Some process, he can't explain, has triggered in his head, shooting off alarms.

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What is Confucianism?

The great learning [adult study, grinding the corn in the head's mortar to fit it for use] takes root in clarifying the way wherein the intelligence increases through the process of looking straight into one's own heart and acting on the results; it is rooted in watching with affection the way people grow; it is rooted in coming to rest, being at ease in perfect equity.

It is said in the K'ang Proclamation: He showed his intelligence by acting straight from the heart.

[γνῶθι σεαυτόν: Know Thyself]

As the sun makes it new

Each day make it new

Yet again, make it new

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Important words from the above quotes:

• Look
• Act
• Make 
• Each day