Win or lose in an argument or competition, what difference does it makes? The truth is your mental health will be negatively affected regardless of whether you win or lose. The winner doesn’t necessarily hold the truth; he is only skillful in debating. Winning makes him more arrogant and drifts further away from the truth. The loser may hold the truth but not skillful in debating. The defeat in the argument may cause self-doubt and make him drifts away from the truth. You should be contented with being not-wrong; being not-right is OK. You are intelligent to not compete merely for the sake of determining who is cleverer. If you don’t compete with anyone, no one can compete with you.
In all cases, debating is never about finding the truth. It is about which side you take and you argue for your side even if you don’t agree with your side of the story or your own arguments. It is about doing everything it takes to defeat the opponent. The end finds its way to justify the means. The victor assumes he has the truth and demands everybody to agree with him. It is really unwise to engage in a debate; you always lose regardless of winning or losing in the debate. The truth is above the winner of the debate (事实胜于雄辩).
Hui Shi (惠施) was very good at debating. He debated with many people in his life. He liked the sense of achievement in winning. Every time he felt exhausted after a debate, he would rest under a giant tree. One day, while resting under the tree, he suddenly got the enlightenment on the truth of not debating. From then on, he stopped wasting his energy to debate with anyone again. The giant tree never engaged in competition but concentrate on growing up to a gigantic size. Winning is losing if it is detrimental to you, physically and mentally. Right is wrong if it creates chaos.
A student asked his teacher: “Do you know the ideal method to learn the truth of all things in this world?” The teacher said: “I don’t know”. The student asked: “Do you know how many things that you don’t know?” The teacher said: “I don’t know”. The student asked: “Is there no method to learn the truth of all things in this world?” The teacher said: “I don’t know”. The student was disappointed. The teacher said: “Why should you be disappointed? How do you know that I actually “don’t know” when I said I “know”? How do you know that I actually “know” when I said I “don’t know”?” The student seemed to understand something. The teacher continued to say: “Let me ask you. A person who sleeps in a wet place will get Arthritis. Will it happen to mudfish? A person who lives on a tree will feel afraid of falling. Will it happen to monkey? Human, mudfish and monkey live in different environments. Who knows which environment is the ideal? Human like to eat meats, deer like to eat grass, centipedes like to eat snakes, and crows like to eat mice. The tastes of the four animals are different. Who knows which taste is the ideal?” When someone says he knows something, he may not actually know it. There are different things which are ideal for different people or animals. It is not necessary to define one standard for everybody, or argue which is right and which is wrong. A diverse of things can be not right and not wrong at the same time. Different people can have different tastes, and that’s OK. Don’t pretend that you are cleverer and want to force everybody to agree with you.
The tastes of politicians, businessmen, teachers, and different people are different. Who knows which taste is the ideal? The ideal environments for government and business are different. Businesses are selfish entities or profit centered and the bosses always live in fear of making losses. Government should only provide services to facilitate the people and it should have no consideration about its profit or loss. Government should work like a horse or a cow; and the people should continue to whip it regardless of whether it is a good or bad horse/cow.
There is a difference between intelligent and clever. An intelligent person will not play with fire because he knows the danger of fire. A clever person enhances his skill to play with fire and therefore ignorant of the danger of fire. Don’t force yourself to be clever, so that you don’t have to compete with anyone. Don’t give high regard to honor or any precious thing, so that you are not lured to become a thief or a fraudster. Don’t see anything as desirable, so that your emotion is not restless. (不上贤，使民不争；不贵难得之货，使民不为盗；不见可欲，使民不乱。)
If Shakyamuni Buddha is the head of state, he would not want clever devil in his court, so that the people don’t compete to become clever devils. He would not give high regard to excessively refined things. He would lead by example so that the court and the people would not give high regard to excessively refined things, therefore are not lured to steal. He will not show there is anything desirable to be in his court, so that the people’s minds are not restless. He will keep his mind empty to learn new knowledge, eat to live, weaken his ambition, and strengthen his determination. He will continue to educate the people not to be clever devils and not to have excessive desires. He will teach the people to be wary of the uselessness of cleverness, precious things and excessive desires therefore don’t want those things. The state will therefore be peaceful. (不上贤，使民不争；不贵难得之货，使民不为盗；不见可欲，使民不乱。 是以圣人之治也，虚其心、实其腹、弱其志、强其骨，恒使民无知、无欲也；使夫知不敢弗为而已，则无不治矣。) Leadership by example is very important.
Highly intelligent individuals (like Buddha, Confucius, and Lao Zi) have no desire. There is nothing they can’t live without other than the basic needs. If you want to elect a great leader, you must choose a highly intelligent person, who has no desire so that he is truly selfless. A person who has a lot of desire cannot be truly selfless. It is a symptom of low intelligent (although he may be very clever); therefore, he doesn’t have the leadership quality and doesn’t deserve to be your leader.
There was a boy seeking refuge in a foreign land. He was begging on the street, suffering from hunger and cold every day. One day, a rich man took him home and loved him like his son. When the boy grew up, he murdered the rich man in order to possess the wealth. Being rich is a curse. Rich men often need to hire bodyguards to protect them and their family members. However, they still don’t feel safe because they have not only external enemies but also enemies within. Many emperors and kings were murdered by their heirs or other children. The heirs then killed their brothers and other family members because of fear of being murdered. Sometime the new kings were murdered by their relatives or ministers. Teaching the people to be clever is very dangerous; they will heed the advice and out-clever the teacher. Teaching the people to desire for success, wealth and fame is very dangerous; they will heed the advice and do everything they can to get the honors. Teaching the people to desire to become government leaders is very dangerous; they will heed the advice and seek the power to meddle with the lives of the people, regardless of whether we like it or not, all in the name of compassion and righteousness (aka race and religion), and development, but they are actually making the people miserable for the self-serving purpose of collecting the honors. If politicians become rich and powerful, they are not as selfless as they want us to believe. They only want us to be selfless in helping them to collect the honors; they claim everything good is due to their contributions to the state, and everything bad is due to the people or someone else. I wish we can have a truly selfless Artificial Intelligence (which is intelligent 睿智, no desire 无欲, don’t compete with the people 不争, love the people 慈and love the Mother Earth by being thrifty 俭) as our head of state in the future. Good leaders who are selfless are so rare, and after they die, the darkness will return. Computerize Artificial Intelligence (人工智能) may be better than human Artificial Cleverness (假聪明), in this case.
RESILIENT KID 