excerpts from a paper i had to do in taoism class, explaining my world views in the style of chuang tzu. i failed miserably at imitating the chuang-er but the ideas still remain valid.



reason. reason is the faculty that has led to man's greatest achievements. reason has removed us from mother earth's shackles, raised us above the animals and given us skyscrapers and super highways. superior intellect and logic is all that separates man from beast. advancing technology and organization harnesses the earth's resources and gives man increasing power over his environment. with this power man has carved out a kingdom for himself.



why then do we attempt to revert to our baser instincts? disregard our gift of reason and listen to emotion? emotion is quaint and antiquated. the dog at my feet loves me when i feed him, fears me when i hit him. is he any worse off than the man that cries when struck and never wonders why? we are not creatures of instinct. we have evolved sensibilites and increased mental faculties. we are entirely capable of distinguishing what we need to do over what we would like to do. yet the heart is still treasured as a valuable resource, as a signifier of how we should really do things. "follow your heart" is as ambiguous as it is useless. to follow our hearts would leave us craving the next high, placing our lives in situations that might create an emotional high and thus happiness. the alternative, knowing what does and does not matter to you, would lead to a stable mindset and not expose us to the whims and fancies of our emotion.



emotions are only the first gut instinct and are not true just because they are felt first. emotion is only our survival instinct protecting us from the carnivorous predators of yore, which no longer exist today. our logic and reason should lead us now and that reason should not be victimized or held back by the constraints of emotion.



the notion of remaining "true to yourself" is faulty. being "true to yourself" is not following your emotions or your gut instincts, it is forming a vision of yourself and then striving mightily to achieve that. if we all succumb to our baser emotions many of us would be left to wander in the proverbial desert, waiting for the next high or low to provoke us into a reaction.



children rise and fall on the crests of emotion. they are unable to rationalize or understand why they are being mistreated or disciplined. with time however, they gain control over their emotions and gain the ability to logically work out the "whys" of a particular situation. this transition indicates a maturation from childhood to adulthood. we can see their struggle to bring together a worldview apart from their emotion in every "why" that they ask. why did you do that? why is this bad? what should i do to make you love me?



jealousy. we who look out with green eyed envy at the faces around us expose our insecurities, laundering and flashing them to the world. jealousy is the fear of being supplanted, apprehensive of losing affection or position. jealousy is binding ownership and constricting walls. jealousy creates slaves of its objects and demands attention and committment. jealousy supplants the rights of an individual and demands a power struggle between what is yours and what is mine. the face of jealousy is twisted and contorted, the eyes darting and probing. the mind of jealousy is fetid and putrid, scheming always to garner affection and influence. the caged bird is the symbol of jealousy, a creature built for the skies, blossoming on cerulean wings but cut off from its natural environment by unbending steel bars.



the husband who seeks to bind his wife to him, taking her away to be caged, is cutting her off from the very world that she emerged from. when told that his wife was seen having dinner with a strange man, sebastian replied, "it is not my concern who her friends are, as long as i know that she loves me and will return at the end of the day to be with me, her affairs are hers." this is the ultimate refutation of jealousy, a trust that extends past the steel bars and releases the bird to fly about as it pleases.