Sunday, February 6, 2011

free from virtue

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There is something to be said for instituting a virtuous or meritorious endeavor. It takes determination and patience and it often pays off in a sense of ease or contentment. Some even turn virtue and merit into a full-bore occupation -- encouraging or threatening others with a metaphorical big stick ... be virtuous or get screwed in one way or another... accumulating merit is the way to go.

But when it comes to what is called virtue, I think I think that virtue is only as good as the willingness and ability to set it aside, to let it go utterly. If you can't let it go, how could you ever discover what you were holding in the first place?
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2 comments:

  1. "If you can't let it go, how could you ever discover what you were holding in the first place?"

    Good thinking!

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  2. i enjoyed the quote too.

    i was about to send an email to my HR that i am skipping work tomorrow to see a gynae. i am a guy. i indeed can use a hug from a gynae, because from the day i was born i did not pay attention to the moments when nothing went wrong, and now every day is wrong and yet i am wide awake. my gynae did not include an instruction manual when he delivered me.

    i am tired (who isn't), i can feel the chest pain and headache(others have it worse), but the invisible hand that holds on to the pain and not putting it down is hiding somewhere, not listening to my wish.

    found it.. i am holding onto the indian textbooks definition of virtue printed 2500 years ago. while not entirely passe, virtue is also expressed as hundreds of lines of rules, but a monk's code of ethic compared to a lay person, to a cook versus a engineer versus a students, they are not the same.

    if ur son is at school, he is still ur family member. should he follow school's definition of virtue, or the household's, or his own unpolished rules, or perhaps.. as my other colleague once said, give it ur best estimate.

    i estimated that no matter what is done, we are still running around in circles.

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