One of my previously written post titled "destined fortune" states that the prominent naval minister of Qhing Dynasty put this remark on his tomb stone "belief in destined fortune and not in the acquired knowledge". My personal perception about his statement carved on his tomb stone is apparently telling the world that we have nothing to be proud of because anything profound that you think you have achieved is actually the result of your destined fortune. And so I have taken Mr. Zeng as my comrade in terms of the same view point about life -- fatalism.
To me, fatalism means a belief that whatever you do to prevent something from happening, or to make something to be materialized, whatever is resulted is the one you have to just accept no matter whether you really want or hate it.
There are many popular sayings we are familiar with in our everyday living, such as, "whatever will be will be"; all these sayings reflect the mindset is ruled by the belief of fatalism.
But you should never raise this topic in any discussion group and simply allege that you believe in fatalism lest you will be despised as a coward, not manly, useless guy. And whoever criticizes you always has powerful and magnificent theory to support them, and all these critics will humiliate you. The reason is simply because you are not as successful, prominent and high up there as Mr. Zeng.
But my advice does not apply to Mr. Zeng, because he was so successful; He was in the top ranking in the country being a naval minister. Many people say that Mr. Zeng was only showing his humble manner to the world by saying "believe in destined fortune and not in the acquired knowledge", and they believe all of his accomplishment Mr. Zeng has achieved are the result of his effort. And I believe just differently from this because if the reason he said so was just because of his humbleness, then he didn't have to carve it on the tomb stone. Anything that is carved on the tomb stone is a serious belief the dead deeply believed during his lifetime.
Although I believe in fatalism, I still work hard and live every of my days seriously, and not indulge myself in anything that and corrupts me. Because I have a belief extension, causality.
From the appearance, causality is somewhat in conflict with fatalism. Because the causality believes that everything and anything does not happen from nowhere; they believe whatever has emerged can be traced back to the very origin of the cause, just like the simile of "harvest cucumber because the cucumber seeds are buried; harvest bean because bean seeds are planted
To me, fatalism means a belief that whatever you do to prevent something from happening, or to make something to be materialized, whatever is resulted is the one you have to just accept no matter whether you really want or hate it.
There are many popular sayings we are familiar with in our everyday living, such as, "whatever will be will be"; all these sayings reflect the mindset is ruled by the belief of fatalism.
But you should never raise this topic in any discussion group and simply allege that you believe in fatalism lest you will be despised as a coward, not manly, useless guy. And whoever criticizes you always has powerful and magnificent theory to support them, and all these critics will humiliate you. The reason is simply because you are not as successful, prominent and high up there as Mr. Zeng.
But my advice does not apply to Mr. Zeng, because he was so successful; He was in the top ranking in the country being a naval minister. Many people say that Mr. Zeng was only showing his humble manner to the world by saying "believe in destined fortune and not in the acquired knowledge", and they believe all of his accomplishment Mr. Zeng has achieved are the result of his effort. And I believe just differently from this because if the reason he said so was just because of his humbleness, then he didn't have to carve it on the tomb stone. Anything that is carved on the tomb stone is a serious belief the dead deeply believed during his lifetime.
Although I believe in fatalism, I still work hard and live every of my days seriously, and not indulge myself in anything that and corrupts me. Because I have a belief extension, causality.
From the appearance, causality is somewhat in conflict with fatalism. Because the causality believes that everything and anything does not happen from nowhere; they believe whatever has emerged can be traced back to the very origin of the cause, just like the simile of "harvest cucumber because the cucumber seeds are buried; harvest bean because bean seeds are planted
2 comments:
Thank you for an interesting and informative post! I was especially interested in your remarks on reconciling fatalism and causality.
Thank you for your comment, Paul. It is a precious encouragement to someone. who is practicing writing in English.
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