For those who would seek virtue:<\/p>\n
The news media is not the only ones that edit, conservatives and liberals are editing what they hear and see all the time. We tend to pick the facts that validate us, our ideology and worldview. The world presents us with a smorgasbord of perceptions that we can establish our truths on. As the Buddhists maintain, we attach ourselves to these perceptions to create ourselves, define who we are, cling to our desires. What we need to always remember is what Alan Watts called the \u201cwisdom of insecurity\u201d. The roots of our inhumanity to each other lies in our need to be certain, to be a self defined by truth and thus, situated securely in our being. Whenever we cling to our truths we also create an underside, a possibility for being wrong, for being untrue. This shadow follows all that would truly \u201cbe\u201d. The inhumanity comes when we forget that we essentially have the capacity to be wrong, to be untrue, to lack. The \u201cwisdom of insecurity\u201d is a letting go of our forgetfulness, our need to cling to our truths and insist that we are true, right, holy, pure, etc. Carl Jung talked about the psychological assimilation of the shadow self. The Buddhists talk about release from samsara (playful illusion of birth, death and rebirth). Lao Tzu tells us: <\/p>\n
If you want to become whole, \u201cTao Te Ching\u201d, Section 22<\/p>\n Nietzsche, speaking of virtue writes: <\/p>\n And others are proud of their modicum of righteousness, and for the sake of it do violence to all things: so that the world is drowned in their unrighteousness. \u201cThus Spake Zarathustra\u201d XXVII. THE VIRTUOUS<\/p>\n Jesus admonishes us to \u201cwatch out that the light in you is not darkness.<\/strong>\u201d Luke 11: 35<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For those who would seek virtue: The news media is not the only ones that edit, conservatives and liberals are editing what they hear and see all the time. We tend to pick the facts that validate us, our ideology and worldview. The world presents us with a smorgasbord of perceptions that we can establish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-western-philosophy","tag-shirley-sherrod"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3918,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/3918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nfirst let yourself become broken.
\nIf you want to become straight,
\nfirst let yourself become twisted.
\nIf you want to become full,
\nfirst let yourself become empty.
\nIf you want to become new,
\nfirst let yourself become old.
\nThose whose desires are few get them,
\nthose whose desires are great go astray.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAh! how ineptly cometh the word “virtue” out of their mouth! And when they say: “I am just,” it always soundeth like: “I am just\u2014revenged!”
\nWith their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.
\nAnd again there are those who sit in their swamp, and speak thus from among the bulrushes: “Virtue\u2014that is to sit quietly in the swamp.
\nWe bite no one, and go out of the way of him who would bite; and in all matters we have the opinion that is given us.”
\nAnd again there are those who love attitudes, and think that virtue is a sort of attitude.
\nTheir knees continually adore, and their hands are eulogies of virtue, but their heart knoweth naught thereof.
\nAnd again there are those who regard it as virtue to say: “Virtue is necessary”; but after all they believe only that policemen are necessary.
\nAnd many a one who cannot see men’s loftiness, calleth it virtue to see their baseness far too well: thus calleth he his evil eye virtue.\u2014
\nAnd some want to be edified and raised up, and call it virtue: and others want to be cast down,\u2014and likewise call it virtue.
\nAnd thus do almost all think that they participate in virtue; and at least every one claimeth to be an authority on “good” and “evil.”
\nBut Zarathustra came not to say unto all those liars and fools: “What do YE know of virtue! What COULD ye know of virtue!”\u2014
\nBut that ye, my friends, might become weary of the old words which ye have learned from the fools and liars:
\nThat ye might become weary of the words “reward,” “retribution,” “punishment,” “righteous vengeance.”\u2014 <\/strong><\/p>\n