On Decoration

An edited version of "Decoration and Happiness" from the Pub which I am one of the contributors:


If we are to talk about the different between men and women, one marked difference is perhaps women's decorative instinct. Aside from fashion, women have also prided themselves on being victims of decorative objects. One of the conflicts in a romantic relationship often stems from the unmentionable gravity of what surrounds us: the kinds of curtains, sofas, tables, and chairs. The female obsession of what and how to decorate confirms the frequent complaints of men who think the matter is as useless and fugitive as what to wear. Why does it matter that a lamp should stand against this side of the wall rather the opposite side of it? How is it possible that the colour of the cupboard is able to threaten to end their relationships? Don't these objects fulfil their purpose as long as they are functional?


It is not uncommon to see skyscrapers, the symbol of modernity, are tightly packed on the streets of metropolis like New York City in an disorderly manner, just like what the renowned French architect Le Corbusier remarked when he visited the city in the 30's, that it is the sign of an "illogical city". They fail to integrate individual liberty with collective behaviours. If the urban planning of the city evokes a sense of architectural pessimism, isn't it sensible to retain our liberty to construct the interiors of our homes?

The female insistence on decoration may lie in their clear-eyed understanding of how decorative objects can influence us. Imagine the life of an ordinary businessman. His daily routines of work are compromised. His days are dense with meetings, insincere handshakes, gossip, and bureaucracy. He may pride himself on saying things that he does not believe to win over the opinions of his colleagues. He may only work towards goals that he essentially doesn't care much for but only to please his boss. Driven by financial necessity, he may have to work overtime or even moonlight to ensure the acquisition of a status that is not inimical to the developments of friendship.

A visit to an ordinary home offers conclusive evidence of why many people are so miserable and anxious. Many times when I visit a home I find a certain reluctance to precision and order by the home owner. The home is usually in a mess. Of course, it is a mistake to assume the home owner champions the French aesthetic obsession of ease and playfulness rather than the Japanese aesthetic ideal of orderliness and stability. He has no intention to establish an argument over the intellectual debate on beauty between the two schools of thoughts. Rather than encouraging aesthetic sensitivity, his selection of furniture as well as his disoriented perception of colours hint at a psychological distress of what business and finance account for.

Emotion

Logic

All of a sudden, the awareness of how to select decorative objects to be placed in our homes is raised to a status of supreme importance because these material objects, often described as representations of vanity and self-indulgence, often, like a psychological mould, hold up our moods. The art critic John Ruskin once remarked, "A building must do two things: it must shelter us and it must speak to us of the things we find important and need to be reminded of." If it is true for the case of architecture, why, then, can't we say the same for decorative objects? There exists a tendency in our human nature to associate inanimate objects with human sentiments. What strikes us beautiful is often in accordance to what we feel about it. Through the promotion of a chair, a table, a door, and a bookshelf, we may find a material articulation of certain good ideas of life, of what we think is precious, just like a chair with a straight contour may imply logic and rationality as much as one with a curved contour may imply passion and emotional sensibility.

Why is it important that we find such evocation through decorative objects? All too often we harbour different selves through the tedious daily routines of work. We are stripped of the chance to reveal our authentic selves. However, after a long day of work, coming home to the objects that express what we seldom publicly express, that feel what we whole-heartedly feel, may strip away the worries and anxieties that we confront during work. We need something that shores up our moods because much of the world is opposed to our allegiances. After all, we long for a home, a home that speaks to our inner selves.

Many men have blamed women on their decorative instincts. The male worship of mechanics renders our society unimaginative and dull. Women, on the other hand, invite us to become aware of certain values which most of us always neglect. Science is always accounted for the promotion of civilisation, but perhaps through our minutest observation of the daily habits of women, we may find the most intelligent kind of happiness.

W

On Shopping

For most women, perhaps the easiest way to escape from worries and anxieties is shopping. They never hesitate to abandon the Marxist philosophy, rather than consider shopping a way to encourage capitalism, they derive their emotional satisfactions from worldly possessions instead of an academic discipline called "philosophy". In the modern society where shopping is the major leisure activity, men are no longer immune to this disease. While women are often the victims of fashion, men tend to submit their desires to electronics. However delightful shopping is to both species, this activity is practised quite differently.

When men and women engage in a romantic relationship, the first conflict of interest often arises from shopping. Shopping has to make men unhappy. They easily grow impatient with the customary female curiosity. Rather than just target at the items they previously read in a fashion magazine, most women consider shopping a never-ending adventure, harbouring an excuse for their constant exploration tempted by different window displays. Most men may also be annoyed by the fact that they have to wait outside the dressing rooms laying down aesthetic judgement every time women put new garments on, a process that would only be interrupted by a confused look at their watches. What is followed is the customary ritual of having to take their credit cards out and have them slide through a machine which will chisel a considerable amount of fortune in their bank accounts at the end of each month. What is more embarrassing is the aftermath of the ritual. The role of men in a romantic relationship is easily redefined. Having carried different shopping bags in their hands, along with their usual displays of gentlemanly behaviour and their unwillingness to be slaves, one might wonder how the degree of equality of men and women can be diminished in a such a democratic leisure activity.

If both men and women are prone to shopping, what is it that makes men so unhappy? Why can't men equally inflict the same painful procedure on women? The answer lies not so much in their differing interests, but rather, in their habits of shopping.

Men would exercise the activity of shopping as originally planned. After flipping over pages of magazines, they would carefully select the items they desire and go to the destined locations, without the intention to wander around, to get just what exactly they want. If the shop happens to be out of stock or not carry the item, they may as well just go home disappointed.

Women, on the contrary, consider shopping a process of generating new desires. Though a great many fashion magazines already remind them of how many garments their wardrobes are missing and how they should be ashamed of their own physical candour in comparison to that of models, however miserable these magazines leave them at the absence of thousands of items, they still harbour a belief that behind every shop window, there are always things that go uncover by magazines. Rather than just shop for what they read in magazines, they never only confine themselves within the carefully selected choices. Though a nicely knitted cardigan may have been their original target, they may end up discovering a pair of high heel shoes which are deemed too pity to miss, a dress that is on sale which seems too silly not to buy, or a flask of perfume which its aroma is too hard to resist.

The difference of men and women is probably the former have a weird obsession with planning and the latter fond of surprises. There exists a tendency in human nature a deep love of certainty and a deep-seated fear of novelty. We always anticipate the future as what we wish it to be and neglect the obstacles it may bring to us. However optimistic we wish to be, the reality always offers conclusive evidence of the sad fact that it is always disappointing. A wish for novelty, on the other hand, may cut away all the unhappiness inspired by our undue optimistic anticipation because it prepares for us a mind-set of expecting nothing and happiness is only best enjoyed when it is accidental.

Many have blamed women on their unpredictable behaviours. If they are obsessed with shopping, it is perhaps because they are unsure of who they are or what they want to be. But aren't all of us unsure of who we are? Don't we spend our whole life figuring out who we are? If we are unsure of what we want to be, doesn't it seem too silly to stay fixated on certain principles rather than admit the possibility of new things? While we all deceptively attack consumerism, perhaps, from a female perspective, some wisdoms can be drawn from something as trivial as shopping.

W

On Reading

If reading has become a less practised activity, it is because the technological revolution in the late 90s has introduced us to a new way of representing ideas. As the internet comes to dominate a great portion of our life, drowning us with videos and images, there exists a need to confess we no longer have complete faith in words. The internet, on the face of it, seems to want to inculcate in us an ability of visual appreciation, rather than submit our sensory pleasures to the monotony of words and the tedious structure of sentences, it suggests we should learn how to appreciate the diversity of colours and the beauty of movements rather than serenity. Perhaps it won't be long until a man who makes videos on YouTube and posts images in his blog may be able to replace an essayist like Francis Bacon or Michel de Montaigne who was able to change minds and fill lives.

What, then, is wrong with videos and images? The problem lies not in videos and images per se, but rather, in what gives rise to the uprising of this visually oriented artistic movement. In the age of the internet, artistic talents are no longer confined within a group of carefully categorised individuals. Everyone can be artists. Encouraged by this democratic vision of being directors and photographers, it is not uncommon to see they are spamming the internet through social platforms such as Facebook, blogs, and Youtube.

Unfortunately, however democratic art may be, it is precisely the reason why such commonly valued behaviour undermines beauty. Instead of employing the art of photography and filming as conscious efforts of seeing and of noticing the minutest details of something beautiful, many use them as a medium as substitution something that can assure them the possession of beauty. Therefore, quantity, rather than quality, is raised to a status of supreme importance.

Moreover, the spamming of images and short films on the internet may as well deprive us of the ability to appreciate beauty in words, the inability to appreciate a beautifully composed essay by a fine prose stylist. For those who are accustomed to the art of reading, it is not hard to understand how words can shape our thinking. Our pleasure in thought, on most occasions, arises from our intimacy with words. It is almost as if it is deemed too impossible to indulge in the noble act of thinking without our inherent semantic instinct. Visual images give free play to ambiguities while language gives it to precision. Small wonder why philosophers write books.

Another benefit of reading is perhaps escapism. Short films and images may deliver genuine messages as profound as those in literature, however, our desire for subtle meanings is easily interrupted by other emotionally provoking things such as music, costume, and a beautifully designed scenery. But in reading a book, we can, without the interruption of other art forms, abstract ourselves from current surroundings and enter a more agreeable world, being able to concentrate on one medium, namely, words, and therefore recognise the beauty they are able to offer at full force.

Reading also leaves room for for better imagination because writers are able to portray inner experience and behaviours in their minutest details which most directors and photographers fail. A book will have sensitised us, stimulated and refined our aesthetic and emotional senses, and elevated them to a level comparable to that of artists. We are easier to be sexually aroused by a erotic novel instead of a pornographic film.

Taking photographs and directing short films are as equally praiseworthy activities as reading. But in the age of technology, our attention to both becomes unbalanced. So while devoting most of our days to browsing Facebook and YouTube, let us not forget leaving some time for a leisurely stroll in bookstores.

W

On Happiness

If we are asked what our ultimate goal is, we are often driven to the conclusion that we all want to be happy. As we become more mature, we realise the reality is not as promising as what we hope to be. We are always confronted with repetitions of misfortunes and worries. Therefore, it is not uncommon to ask how we can obtain an abstract notion of what we may call "happiness". In the world of philosophy, from Plato to Bertrand Russell, they suggest what constitutes happiness as if it is in the control of our own hands. However strong our faith in the existence of free will, empirical evidence suggests the possession of happiness depends on mere sheer luck. But does that mean it is impossible to obtain happiness except to submit ourselves to the mysterious force of what we call "luck"?

Happiness is not possible if we do not know what we are looking for. But there comes the paradox. What makes us happy is often not the notion of 'happiness" per se, but rather the process of pursuing it. Alain de Botton makes a similar case for love in his "Essays in Love",

"There is the old joke made by the Marx who laughed about not deigning to belong to a club that would accept someone like him as a member, a truth as appropriate in love as it is in club membership. We laughed at the Marxist position because of its absurd contradictions: How is it possible that I should wish to join a club and then lose that wish as soon as it comes true?"

The easiest people to fall in love with are those whom we know nothing because they defy our ease of understanding. Our longing to possess someone lies not in a clear-eyed investigation of one's personality, but in knowing it as less as possible. Familiarity breeds contempt. We ought not to forget the fact that men are creatures of habit and therefore liable to grow contemptuous of what is familiar. Only through someone whom we know nothing, we are able to secure a romantic conception of love.

Similarly, the case for happiness follows this trajectory. If happiness is stripped of its idealisation, we may be taken away what gives meaning to our life because it is no longer out of reach of our hands. Happiness should be considered a by-product of what we do. It is merely a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal. Happiness is perhaps something contrary to the spirit of scientific inquiry, namely, the attainment of truth, rather than expose it to nudity at full force, we should learn how to entertain a bit of ignorance.

Perhaps most philosophers have been wrong. The more their analysis goes in depth, the more happiness flees from us. Like Robert Rowland Smith puts it, "happiness can only be known in retrospect." We often never enjoy much of the time we spend with our friends, but only through the process of backtracking, friendship bears fruit. It is precisely when you are not aiming for happiness, you become happy.

It is time to retract our thoughts on happiness. Rather, we should do what we love and submit our thinking to the Marxist position that we should always keep our dream in the realm of fantasy. Happiness cannot be obtained by our conscious effort. It is only through not obtaining it we can be happy.

"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be happy."- John Stuart Mill

W

The Need of Philosophical Taoism For The Modern World

If philosophical Taoism has been largely ignored, it is perhaps because Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, was not as fond of acquiring disciples as Confucius. Out of all three major religions in Chinese culture, only Confucianism and perhaps a modest degree of Buddhism have remained supreme down to this day. The reason partly, of course, lies in Lao Tzu not having any disciple, but what has made Confucianism supreme lies in the peculiar act of the burning of the books by the Qin Emperor. The outcome of the burning of the books was not quite what the Qin Emperor envisaged to be, rather than eliminated the category of the literati, it had risked inspiring the desire of revenge in them, an unfair neglect of philosophical Taoism, and a misguided enthusiasm for Confucianism. Along with the burning of the books, in the latter part of the twentieth century under the Maoist regime, there was the Cultural Revolution which sough to destroy the three religions altogether. Not until recently the Chinese have started to moderately scrutinise the Cultural Revolution and felt the need to revive Confucianism.

But are we to only draw wisdoms from the Analects but not from the Tao Te Ching and other Buddhist Scriptures? Does only Confucianism deserve our immediate attention? Is Confucianism the only product of an at least three thousand years of civilisation that is worthy of our honour? The merits of Confucianism may have perhaps been overlooked. Confucianism seems only to painfully inflict pre-modern ethical codes upon us, while presuming morality has an objective criterion, it enforces our mind to submit to tyranny rather than autonomy and therefore is falsely raised to a status of intellectual superiority. Philosophical Taoism, on the contrary, may find its place in the liberal school of thought. Rather than acknowledges itself as a gospel of how we should live, it wanders at the intervals between tyranny and autonomy, doing and non-doing, talks and silence.

In a world where it is commercially driven, most of the minutes of our days are devoted to production rather than consumption. Everything that counts as economically unproductive is severely condemned. Futile conversations become more praiseworthy than agreeable silence. Driven by financial necessity, men have become mad, arrogant, and dogmatic. Perhaps it is time to turn to philosophical Taoism and see what it can offer for our modern life.

All too often we are inclined to think industrialisation, by virtue of scientific technique, strives to reduce human labour. The reality, however, is always disappointing. New skills derived from scientific technique have always been monopolised by the minority. Rather than benefit the majority, our financial destiny are in the hands of the few to promote the ills of capitalism and ensure their status is at the very top of social hierarchy, filling our lives with worries and anxieties. As soon as money has become the prime mover of everything, it is not uncommon to run into workaholics on the streets exchanging business information with laptops and setting up meetings with clients on mobile phones even in the most unworkable period of the day. Almost all electronic devices suddenly seem to be designed to bring the office back home rather than for the sake of leisure.

It didn’t take long for such habit of mind to penetrate to the core of our life. Just when we decide to take off our shoes and lie in the grass to let the grass caress our feet, the herd condemn us for being idle. Just when we wish to devote some time to reading poetry, they carefully advise us to spend time reading self-help books about how we can be as successful as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs or techniques that are required to invest in stock markets. Just when we harbour a confused wish to do what we like and become what we want to be, the peers remind us of the scarcity of great minds and tell us, with an elderly and experienced tone, that we are better off pursuing a life in making profits. Let alone our dreams. But does happiness necessarily have to be confined to pecuniary terms? If Lao Tzu were still alive today, what would he suggest to remedy our anxieties?

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu shows us there exists a danger if we devote too much of our time to productivity:

“Banish wisdom, discard knowledge,
And the people will be benefited a hundredfold.
Banish human kindness, discard morality,
And the people will become dutiful and compassionate.
Banish skill, discard profit,
And thieves and robbers will disappear.
If when these three things are done they find life too plain and unadorned,
Then let them have accessories;
Give them Simplicity to look at, the Uncarved Block to hold,
Give them selflessness and fewness of desires.”

Lao Tzu believes that we were all born into a certain harmony that we should all naturally abide by the Way of Tao. To instil in us artificial desires is to violate the fundamental law of nature, to run counter to what Tao confers. If we need to banish skill and discard profit, it is because these things will plant the seeds for human greed and jealousy. Lao Tzu urges us to be humble, rather than comply to the modern gospel of work at full force, we should realise what we naturally need, warding off unnecessary dangers inspired by the dark side of human nature. It is not worthwhile to devote all our time to pursue what is profitable because men are emotionally vulnerable and liable to grow jealous and feel unease of those whom we take to be our equals who have superior achievements. We ought to, Lao Tzu suggests, strike a balance between self-preservation and our love of money.

Aside from the possible dangers triggered by the dark side of human nature, Lao Tzu also intends to show us how economically unproductive behaviours can be beneficial:

“We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognise the usefulness of what is not.”

Lao Tzu suggests something that is contrary to what the majority are committed. Rather than affirming the value of material objects with our imperfect senses, he invites us to consider the value of being vacuous, the usefulness of the space that we normally neglect because it is precisely the space that allows us to move objects around.

But what does that say about our modern society? There exists a tendency in the modern educational system to think the arts and humanities are worthless while business and finance are the gospels of promoting economic development. Universities, rather than being places for the liberation of mind, they have become more like training schools. Subjects are becoming more vocational rather than emphasizing the cultural elements. However useless the arts and humanities may seem, Lao Tzu compels us to look at what is not and revise certain notions of what we commonly suppose as useless, hence attach it to a more “just” and “correct” value. Take, for instance, philosophy. Knowing certain philosophical theories may not compensate for the missing garments in our wardrobe nor allow us to get a brand new Mercedes, but it enforces us to submit our thinking to the rigours of rational examination, instead our common tendency on intuition, emotion, and custom. It helps us to break free from the bondage of herd instinct and broaden our minds so we can comprehend the world differently. British philosopher Bertrand Russell is also in favour of the Taoist thought,

“I have enjoyed peaches and apricots more since I have known that they were first cultivated in China in the early days of Han Dynasty; that Chinese hostages held by the great King Kaniska introduced them to India, whence they spread to Persia, reaching the Roman Empire in the first century of our era; that the word "apricot" is derived from the same Latin source as the word "precocious", because the apricot ripens early; and that the A at the beginning was added by mistake, owing to a false etymology. All this makes the fruit taste much sweeter.”

What seems so useless on the surface may not be so after all.

If Lao Tzu is able to offer us the reflective delight of what is useless, why, then, can’t we say the same for unproductive acts such as sunbathing or enjoying the beautiful scenery of starry night or even doing nothing? Lao Tzu’s role lies in opening our eyes, in sensitising our awareness of what is around us, and in inculcating in us an appreciation of objects with previously neglected qualities. These unproductive acts produce in us a contemplative habit of mind. There is in this world too much readiness and too little reflections. The pleasure in thought not only allows us to enlarge our sympathy and diminish human folly, it also comforts us with a peace of mind among worries and misfortunes. It helps us to ward off taboos, bias, and prejudices which makes way for us to see ourselves in a proper perspective. Moreover, it provides us the appropriate aesthetic mindset to admire beauty. We are unable to derive the appropriate pleasure from our leisure if we attend ourselves to haste. In the absence of serenity, the roses will lose their hue, the fruit its flavour, the star its splendour, and the perfume its aroma. Fifteen minutes of concentration at least are needed to appreciate a sculpture, but even the most beautiful sculpture rarely detains anyone for even thirty seconds.

In the culturally extroverting United States, there hover various virtues associated with being talkative: good communication skills, optimistic, friendly, and outgoing. For those who may appear rather introverted, they are generally categorised as silent, lonely, and sometimes even melancholic. And it is often the case this society condemns the latter rather than the former. If introverts are undesirable, it is because the assumption is premised on the fact they lack good communication skills. When they are viewed politically, one may suggest they often opt more for individualism rather than collectivism. Introverts seem to aim at violating the fundamental law of human nature, rather than recognise the value of friendship, they are liable to grow contemptuous of what most anthropologists suggest. But why are they so quiet? Why can't they enjoy companionship?

Perhaps the Tao Te Ching has something to offer:

“The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way;”

“Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.
Block the passages,
Shut the doors,
Let all sharpness be blunted,
All tangles untied,
All glare tempered.
All dust smoothed.
This is called the mysterious levelling.
He who has achieved it cannot either be drawn into friendship or repelled,
Cannot be benefited, cannot be harmed,
Cannot either be raised or humbled,
And for that very reason is highest of all creatures under heaven.”

Lao Tzu suggests Tao cannot be grasped by the ordinary senses nor describe in words. Rather than go through the process of learning, Tao is what we naturally obtain and desire. Silence, from a Taoist perspective, is not a mere excuse for inarticulacy. Instead of thinking language as something to transmit ideas, Lao Tzu condemns it as an artificial invention obstructing the Tao, something invented to make up for the lack of audible evidence, rendering us too reliant on language to attain truths. Silence does not even prevent or perhaps even enhances our understanding of Tao.

What, then, is wrong with language? Is it a strategy that Lao Tzu tries to cover up his conversational poverty? Our society presupposes good communication is all talk. It is virtuous to be outspoken and talk is often the catalyst to mark the start of an intimate relationship. Whenever we are feeling down or depressed, friends and even psychologists urge us to talk it out. When deciding on a matter of utter importance, our peers often like to engage us in day- long discussion or brainstorming that usually no solution can be offered except undue fatigue. Nevertheless, it is important for matters to be decided by discussion and debate. But we should never forget the stories of Socrates offered in Plato’s dialogues. While often inducing strangers to scrutinise commonly accepted notions near the gymnastics, he also often engages himself in silent meditation alone.

If Socrates finds value in silence, it is because “public opinion”, as Chamfort put it, “is the worst of all opinions.” The herd tend to rely their judgement on emotion rather than reason. It is foolish to decide on matters that are of nationally or even internationally importance just by a shrug of the shoulders. With every minute of our life is directed towards the virtue of hard work, we scarcely have time for slow thought out of which wisdom is distilled. Only through the aid of human thought, we may conduct human affairs more sanely. Lao Tzu’s wisdom echoes with the western saying, “The wise listen, the fool chatter.”

It is not hard to understand why people who have achieved the status of silence are “neither drawn to friendship or repelled.” In certain academic spheres, particularly in philosophy and social science, laymen seem to develop distaste for clarity and respect for unfathomable texts. No one ever wishes to wonder what "post-modernism" or "post-colonial constructivism" means. No one wishes to think that Hegel's "The Phenomenology of Spirit" is composed of intolerable nonsense. Rather than condemn it as contorted tangles of language, a sensitive reader may start to worry at length about his intelligence. The fact that a text which is impassable to lay reader may actually be regarded as profound and wise. Yet a text that articulates with immense clarity and fluidity that can be easily understood by an untrained mind may be condemned as invalid because it is more susceptible to criticism.

Lao Tzu’s thought follows a similar trajectory. There exists a peculiar yet paradoxical attraction from the majority for the silent. People who are prone to silence, like those unfathomable texts, defy our ease of understanding. On the face of it, they appear mysterious and offer well-grounded reason for our curiosity. If friendship aims at communication and understanding, however a pause of silence may on the surface suggest the contrary, it compels us to talk. Silence arouses our curiosity and urges us to pursue the matter further. In result, we may get people to talk by not talking, so we can easily go with the flow of conversation, rendering us master talkers.

Isn’t it true of what Lao Tzu says about friendship? We may provoke a sense of silence to get our friend to talk, while satisfying a modest degree of his curiosity, at the same time we may use it intelligently to once again defy his ease of understanding. Hence we are “neither drawn to friendship or repelled.” It also suggests this is an agreeable form of relationship because our curiosity for one another never fades away. It is precisely we entertain between the intervals of knowing and not knowing, closeness and distance, which friendship bears fruit. Masters of silence are therefore at heart talkative. Lao Tzu has successfully redefined what good communication is and delivered a lecture on the art of conversation.

While the virtue of hard work is praised, there is hardly any leisure and our leisure has become as strenuous as work. Our lives are dusty and harsh and filled with trivial self-assertions. Most minutes of our days are given to futile bustle. But the wisdom of Lao Tzu allows us to once again appreciate what is commonly ignored, promote pleasure in thought, and admire the beauty around us. On the other hand, it allows us to revise the notion of silence and, through reflection upon it, we may come to value silent immobility which is essential for meditation and contemplate the nature of human relationships by reconsidering what good communication is all about. Before philosophical Taoism is given its due place, the modern world is unlikely to be sane.

W

P.S. This is one of my homework assignments. Some parts of the essay may resemble what I wrote in previous blog entries.

On Being Talkative

People are of two sorts. Some are born extroverted and some introverted. "Men are born free and equal", suggested the French philosopher Rousseau, but does this maxim illustrate the reality? So much attention has been drawn to issues regarding gender, few of us bother to confront the inequalities between extroverts and introverts.

Extroverts are by definition usually very talkative; they love sports; they acquire excellent communication skills; they are generally happier. Introverts, on the contrary, are quiet; they prefer solitude; their allegiances are to the arts and books rather than outdoor activities; very often they are of a melancholy temperament.

In modern society there exists a certain tendency which people condemn the latter rather than the former. If introverts are undesirable, it is because the assumption is premised on the fact they lack good communication skills. When they are viewed politically, one may suggest they often opt more for individualism rather than collectivism. Introverts seem to aim at violating the fundamental law of human nature, rather than recognise the value of friendship, they are liable to grow contemptuous of what most anthropologists suggest. But why are they so quiet? Why can't they enjoy companionship?

If being introverted is deemed offensive to the societal convention, it is perhaps because they clearly understand value of silence in the art of provoking agreeable conversation. There exists a peculiar yet paradoxical attraction from the majority for the silent. In certain academic spheres, particularly in philosophy and social science, laymen seem to develop a distaste for clarity and respect for unfathomable texts. No one ever wishes to wonder what "post-modernism" or "post-colonial constructivism" means. No one wishes to think that Hegel's "The Phenomenology of Spirit" is composed of intolerable nonsense. Rather than condemn it as contorted tangles of language, a sensitive reader may start to worry at length about his intelligence. The fact that a text which is impassable to lay reader may actually be regarded as profound and wise. Yet a text that articulates with immense clarity and fluidity that can be easily understood by an untrained mind may be condemned as invalid because it is more susceptible to criticism.

Similarly, why, then, can't we say the same for introverts? The fact that an introvert smiles without uttering a word in the midst of a serious political discussion may suggest there is something inherently inferior about the others and therefore raise the silent to a status of intellectual superiority. Because all introverts defy our ease of understanding. On the face of it, they appear mysterious and offer well-grounded reason for curiosity. Introverts are capable of getting people to talk by not saying a word, so they can easily go with the flow of the conversation, hence become masters talkers.

Silence, when used intelligently, compels others to speak. Introverts urge people to talk without doing the effort themselves. They are all at heart talkative. It is time we should do them justice.

W