The Meaning of Life

 
The Meaning of Life
 
Dong Ping and me had a roaring
good  argument yesterday over
whether there’s  such a thing as
“human nature.” 
 
“We’re all different,” he insisted.
 
And then added: people in China
don’t  worry about  the meaning-
of-life  like people in the West do. 
 
If they kill themselves they do it to
get back at someone else, for
social reasons.  
 
Not because they have lost
   “the meaning of life.”
 
For a moment we tried to polarize
and characterize the 2 outlooks:
 
Confucian: life is what it is
               on the one hand

              &  on the other:
“well, what’s the meaning then?”
 
If we could separate and isolate
the 2 hands  then we might consider
how they complement, relate.   
East & West & how they can
just get along; .
 
We couldn’t sustain the distinction.
long enough to make progress.
 
Who loves an either/or?
Who’s going to tolerate a syllogism?
Logic's no model for conversation. 
 
I tried  lecturing him on  “the trinity”
as  an epistemological tool  &  way
of talking that preserves opposition
while  putting relationship (an
emerging phenomena) in
play but didn’t get far.

Nonsense.
We don’t talk like that  in China.
 
Confucius  say it is what it is,
        you got a problem with that? 

Life is the  meaning of life
          for  crying out loud.
 
Great guffaws  & belly laughter.,
Such tink & tank & tunk and
unpostponed joy it is to
be an  academic &
nurture human
nature.

xxxooo, Lead Poisoning Prevention Crew