Table of Content:HOW TO RAISE A RESILIENT KID: I AM NOT RIGHT BUT THAT’S OK
Yin and Yang do not necessarily mean being and non-being. They are just “tools” or “means” of thought processes to arrive at some conclusions to “understand” certain issues and make the necessary decisions. Yin and Yang are not real things; they are just names to represent two opposite concepts. You must not take it literally to mean negative versus positive. Similarly, you must not take the “understanding” derived from analysis based on Yin and Yang too seriously as literally the truth. Theories (including scientific theories) are just ways to explain certain phenomena; these are not necessarily the Laws of Nature or the truths about what actually happen. The ways are not the Way. The truth or Dao can never be described with words. But that doesn’t mean we should stop talking about it or do nothing. We know in real life, we are sometime forced to make a decision in an issue which we know nothing about it. If we know what to do, we should never rely on the analysis of Yin and Yang. Otherwise, we can try whatever means to help us with that inescapable decision making mandate. The concepts of Yin and Yang are used not just in Philosophy but also Chinese Medicine, military strategy, etc. It is not true to say the only thing which doesn’t change is change itself. There are something which keep on changing, and there are something which doesn’t change, such as the patterns of certain changes. For example, the Sun always rises from the East; there are four seasons every year. Theories are useful to extrapolate the paths or graphical curves of those changes, but they are not the truth itself. These are like the fingers which are pointing at the moon but not the moon itself.
In science, we talk about electron and proton being the fundamental elements of everything. Of course, we now know that there are things which are more fundamentals than electron and proton. But that doesn’t make the atomic theories revolving around electron and proton obsolete or invalid. What is useful and proven is not necessarily the truth. What is useless is not necessarily falsehood. Similarly, falsehood is not necessarily useless. The truth is not necessarily useful or usable by everybody. We must transcend above all human distinctions about right and wrong, useful and useless, beautiful and ugly, etc.. Positive and negative are opposite extremes; but they are attracted to each other, they must both exist in equal quantity, none should be despised or eliminated, none should be loved more than the other, contradictory is not a problem to be solved but to be embraced.
There are phenomena which cannot be explained with the concepts of electron and proton. There are phenomena which cannot be explained with Electromagnetic Theory. These problems gave rise to the invention of the Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) theories. Does that mean we finally know the truth? QM and QED are again just theories which are useful to explain certain aspects of natural phenomena. These are not the truth. There are some mind-bending and puzzling concepts in these theories. Those didn’t make the theories falsehoods or the truths.
Does everybody need to know the truth? If you focus on chasing the truth, the truth will run away from you. If you are ignorant of the truth, the truth will ignore you. If you learn to live in harmony with the truth, although you don’t know what or where it is, the truth will find you so lovely and choose to stay right behind your back. A dog which chases his own tail may occasionally catch it, but he will not be able to hold on to it for long. He doesn’t really has to chase it; his tail is always with him, and will always follow him around.
RESILIENT KID 