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Should we be like water or earth?

M

Memeito

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
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168
I've found two opposite ideas - one from Marcus Aurelius and the other one from Bruce Lee.

"Be like the headland against which the waves break and break: it stands firm, until presently the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest. 'How unlucky I am, that this should have happened to me!' By no means; say, rather, 'How lucky I am that this has left me with no bitterness; unshaken by the present, and undismayed by the future."


"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. "

Which one of these are we supposed to follow?
 
WTF are you talking about? I can't believe the stupidity of some people on this board.
Water and earth are metaphors for being flexible or rigid.
 
According to various traditions the primary elements can be different:
- Sea, Earth, Sky, and Wind
- Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether
- Fire, Earth, Water, Metal and Wood

I also found other quotes recomending to emulate the elements:

"Gracious God, my purpose in life is to glorify you, to worship you in all I do, to contribute to your kingdom work on this earth. Help me, I pray, to be fully useful to you. Help me to be like wood that is valuable for building. Prune away from me anything that compromises my value to you."

"Move as swift as a wind, stay as silent as forest, attack as fierce as fire, undefeatable defense like a mountain."

"In raiding and plundering be like fire, be immovable like a mountain"

"...try to be like air that is not caught or tangled with anything; and you can live with ease."

This is all very confusing...What advice should we follow?
 
I don't know how in the hell you guys do this, but you manage to take informal, natural language (which is suppose to have some sort of semantic value) and make into something even less tangible and more abstract and utterly devoid of meaning then the most exotic nonsense you can find in the depths of math, physics, and comp sci (Which are all done in formal systems and are really only suppose to be about syntatic structures). How in the hell do you do that? How do you even know what YOU are THINKING when you read/write this stuff? Let alone reading this stuff, authored by someone else, and trying to figure out what it implies and what it means. OR is this a case of the Chinese room theorem(which, indecently, is less abstract then what this thread is talking about...), are you guys just shuffling meaningless symbols around according a formal system, not unlike a computer or a human doing math?

I'm being serious, I fail to see how one can extract any sort of semantic meaning from anything posted so far, assuming it is actually English anyways.
 
panic in paradise said:
It is elemental.

How can you not find a relation to what makes you?

In Tibetan Astrology, I am an Earth Horse, that is the Yoga, or balance of my chart. Earth Horse as a description was something I could get a lot meaning from, compared to random planet and house placements. As an Earth Horse, I need to keep all four feet on the ground, I can get out of the gate running and kicking not paying attention get all tripped up. If I keep the four material elements in place, having access to the 5th Ethereal and having more peace with in myself much more likely.

_________
I write about the elements of nature most often, what I write to attain peace of mind, about the four earth bound elements is done with the creative 5th element.
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What the hell does that mean?" Earth horse?" Get out of the gate?" all four feet on the ground?" Do you genuinely believe you are a race horse?

All I have to say to everything I've read so far, is that I too want to share a fundamental truth.
2exlnd1.png
 
rangrz said:
What the hell does that mean?" Earth horse?" Get out of the gate?" all four feet on the ground?" Do you genuinely believe you are a race horse?

All I have to say to everything I've read so far, is that I too want to share a fundamental truth.
2exlnd1.png
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lol it's funny that you're JUST now realizing the whimsical nature of PiP's posts and trying to counter that with...I don't know what that equation is other than a white flag.

I don't get why the OP would feel the need to post this as if he really expects there to be one answer. The elements are metaphors for various capabilities of the human spirit, and some people get by like water, while others get by like rocks. Some people get by like a blue sky, and others get by like fire.

Water is the substantial shape shifter, whereas rock needs to break in order to shift shapes, and fire needs to consume ever more fuel to stay alive. The wind must always have a destination, even if it circles back around several times. There's no static wind, but water can be perfectly still, rock is almost always perfectly still (modern geology notwithstanding), fire not only can't stay still, but it can't survive without destroying that which supported or fed it.

I feel like it wouldn't be too hard to come up with human examples for all these elemental properties. It all depends on how you want to be. You make the choice based on your character.
 
Rangrz is according to the Chinese Zodiac a rabbit.
"Rabbit people are pessimistic. They are conservative and insecure, and that explains why most of the them don't like changes.
They don't like to argue and enjoy quiet, peaceful lives. They are also sentimental and compassionate. Yes, and they cry easily too. They can be moved by personal problems you share with them.
The Rabbit is a social creature, tactful, cool, and sensitive to others. Yet this calm can become aloof, the sensitivity can be quirky and thin-skinned, and the intelligence can become dilettantish.
They get along with Pigs, Dogs and Sheeps and aren't compatible with Horses,Rats and Tigers".
 
To understand a man's thoughts you have to look at the man.

Marcus Aurelius fought with an army, on horseback, in Roman times.

Bruce Lee fought by himself using the Wing Chun technique. Flexibility is a fundamental concept of most Eastern martial arts because fights are shows of individual strength and rely more upon mastery of a technique than brute force. If you look at Bruce Lee's fighting style, the guy is fairly rigid in stance (i.e. not sloppy) because he never aggresses and subsequently rarely shifts his balance too far.

I'm currently reading a book, actually, about Bruce Lee's life and training (which was his life). The variety of exercises in his routine was staggering, and with every turn of the page something new is revealed about his constant evolution in regards to fitness. Bruce eschewed the body-sculpting that most people were after by going to the gym and was focused instead on building his body into a better fighting tool, which resulted in his insane strength despite his diminuitive size.

Given that, I would interpret the quote about being like water as him saying simply to focus on utility and constantly evolve so as not to get stuck living in a form that limits you from being faster and stronger.

At the same time, it's hard to dismiss what Marcus was saying because, unlike Bruce, he presumably had to go and fight for his life. In that situation, I certainly hope the rest of the men in my army believe we should crush the enemy like a rock because we'd all be fucked if everyone started prancing around like Bruce Lee and acting invincible. Note that Bruce Lee ultimately succumbed to serious back injury from his insane training and the brain anyeurism(?) that caused his death was probably also related to his fanatic stance on life. I guess he overlooked an even more timeless adage: everything in moderation.
 
thujone said:
To understand a man's thoughts you have to look at the man.

Marcus Aurelius fought with an army, on horseback, in Roman times.

Bruce Lee fought by himself using the Wing Chun technique. Flexibility is a fundamental concept of most Eastern martial arts because fights are shows of individual strength and rely more upon mastery of a technique than brute force. If you look at Bruce Lee's fighting style, the guy is fairly rigid in stance (i.e. not sloppy) because he never aggresses and subsequently rarely shifts his balance too far.

I'm currently reading a book, actually, about Bruce Lee's life and training (which was his life). The variety of exercises in his routine was staggering, and with every turn of the page something new is revealed about his constant evolution in regards to fitness. Bruce eschewed the body-sculpting that most people were after by going to the gym and was focused instead on building his body into a better fighting tool, which resulted in his insane strength despite his diminuitive size.

Given that, I would interpret the quote about being like water as him saying simply to focus on utility and constantly evolve so as not to get stuck living in a form that limits you from being faster and stronger.

At the same time, it's hard to dismiss what Marcus was saying because, unlike Bruce, he presumably had to go and fight for his life. In that situation, I certainly hope the rest of the men in my army believe we should crush the enemy like a rock because we'd all be fucked if everyone started prancing around like Bruce Lee and acting invincible. Note that Bruce Lee ultimately succumbed to serious back injury from his insane training and the brain anyeurism(?) that caused his death was probably also related to his fanatic stance on life. I guess he overlooked an even more timeless adage: everything in moderation.
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Great post.

Actually Bruce Lee suffered from an allergic reaction to a muscle relaxant. I think that was what the coroner reported anyway.

I've read that book as well I think. The guy had like 0% body fat. To say he was fit as fuck is an understatement lol.

Being a student of various martial arts myself I find his philosophy to be extremely helpful. I studied Wing Chun for a short period of time. And the idea of flowing and crashing really describe the art well. But it goes further than that. Being like water just means being able to adapt fitting your fighting style to whatever the situation requires. I wouldn't say his stance was "rigid" though. If you watch his sparring videos he moves with fluidity and lightning speed. Being rigid would have made him slow.

Marcus Aurelius is one of my personal heroes. A true philosopher king. It's been a while since I've read Meditations so I need to read it again. Let us keep in mind that he defeated massive armies leading his legions. Bruce Lee was a great martial artist but in the end he never really fought in the type of battles the ancient Romans did.

It is interesting to note though that the Roman Legion was a pretty flexible military organization. It was one reason why they were so successful. Their flexible nature allowed them to defeat more rigid formations such as the phalanx.
 
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Memeito said:
I guess you skipped Physics in school...mmmm?
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no, rather i'm halfway thru a degree in physics.

please locate for me earth fire water air and aether in this convenient table

table.gif


you're in a very stupid way talking about states of matter, of which there are 4, solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
 
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i against i said:
no, rather i'm halfway thru a degree in physics.

please locate for me earth fire water air and aether in this convenient table

you're in a very stupid way talking about states of matter, of which there are 4, solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
Click to expand...

Every course in Physics,Chemistry,Medicine,Astronomy,etc. should include the theory of classical elements!
Some things can only be explained through this classical theory...
 
you're in a very stupid way talking about states of matter, of which there are 4, solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
Click to expand...

To be fair (and for someone studying physics, which I am too, halfway done M.Sc) there are further states, I am thinking of the stuff like degenerate neutron matter or Bose-Einstein Condensates, hypothetical ones like Quark-Gluon Plasma? They can't be described in terms of the usual 4. Of course, most people never, ever, in any way, deal with these and it's moot from that frame, in which everything does fit into one of the usual ones.

Every course in Physics,Chemistry,Medicine,Astronomy,etc. should include the theory of classical elements!
Some things can only be explained through this classical theory...
Click to expand...

What does it explain that modern theory and terminology would not do a better job of? Like, while not using it as a metaphor that fits into the context of a chemistry, physics, medicine or astronomy course?

That's for answering, as a metaphor, er, it's extremely complex and not very straight forward/easy to understand, but hey, at least I can read the thread now and not wonder if you guys are just copypasting stuff from a nonsense generator. In terms of applying different broad psycho-social traits to life, rangrz says you need to use different ones at different times, as life's experiences are rather diverse.
 
I am not familiar with Quark-Gluon Plasma,[/QUOTE

Hypothetical distribution of quarks of gluons across very small scales and thus only relevant in things like large particle colliers.

Or the topic of woods, okay, you are saying there differences between various materials from an engineering point of view? How does that form a USEFUL metaphor, in terms of enhancing anyone's understanding of it?

I took it to it's most meta-y conclusion in order to hyperbole the contents of this/these type of threads.
Click to expand...
 
thats like asking if we should die in fire or in ice. i favor fire, but who really takes these questions seriously?
 
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