Critics, flowers, and violins

Critics are everywhere! No one can escape criticism! Two thousand years ago there were critics, one thousand years ago there were critics, five hundred years ago there were critics. Today there are still critics. By way of example, in the late 14th century Jeong Dojeon felt that Buddhism would "destroy morality and eventually humanity itself", so he wrote a book outlining why it was bad. If you aren't familiar with Buddhism, let me introduce Charles Muller. Professor Muller is your average scholar of East Asian thought who works at a university in Tokyo. He has translated a number of Buddhist texts into English, including the Diamond Sutra. His translation is interesting in that it seems obvious what he considers to be the essential teaching of this particular sutra, namely the following lines:

All conditioned phenomena
Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow
Like the dew, or like lightning
You should discern them like this

I'm guessing that Jeong Dojeon doesn't fully agree with this sentiment, as romantic as it sounds. Somewhere in his book he probably says it isn't right to think of everything as an illusion, in fact it is plain stupid. Or something like that, after all he's a Neo-Confucian and they have a different way of seeing things. I don't actually know what he says, but whatever he says I am sure it sounds smarter than that. The Buddhists might counter (if they ever did counter him) with something about infinite regression, or maybe they might say that... well they might say a lot of things. It is interesting to view an argument when you don't have a dog in the fight.

But as for me, I like critics, in fact they make me excited! Seriously, always have. My position: If you think I am wrong, then tell me and be honest please. How can I ever improve if I continue to be wrong? Wouldn't you want to know if you were wrong about something? That is why I like critics. Shouldn't everyone? Yeah, when you prove that I am wrong, I will flinch slightly at the sting, I will lick my wounded ego, but then (and this is the crucial part) I will get back on my horse 'cause I can take it. My sacred cows might not fare as well though.

Why should women get to claim all the symbols that are delicate and beautiful, such as flowers and butterflies, for their own? 'Cause you know, sometimes I feel like a flower, or a butterfly, or maybe a butterfly on a flower. It's like those big buff guys who have a tattoo on their shoulder that says "mom", because inside, they just want a hug. On the other hand, I like big scary animals too.

I drempt I played a violin, but instead of drawing a bow across the strings to produce sound, I used another violin. Now that I think about it, wouldn't that be hard to do?