Navigating the New Years to Come
A look back on Secrets of the Sages and suggestions for new readers
Happy Lunar New Year! Whether your culture marks the passage of time by the movement of the sun or the moon, there’s no doubt much to learn from it.
This newsletter/blog began in response to a series of major changes, both on a global and personal scale. It’s during uncertain times that we look to the certainty of history. Being natural pattern-seekers, we humans look to emulate those who not only weathered the storms but thrived in ways that enabled both their survival and ours.
These lessons get passed down and then repeated so often that, like the katas or forms that new martial artists drill endlessly but never see applied, they totally lose their efficacy. Bruce Lee once compared practicing forms to learning to swim by practicing on dry land, but when times are good, it’s hard to find any other way to learn. Nonetheless, we do the best with what we have. And the deeds of those who became masters of life’s everchanging tides of success and failure are the best teachers we have for when the bad times come. Watching how they responded to life’s challenges with timeless principles like tenacity and equanimity is the best way to learn how to apply them to our own challenging times:
They help us discern the ones who truly want to help during a crisis and those who want to shift blame and score political points.
They show us how to center ourselves amidst the wildest storms. And create the routines we need to remember what actually matters.
Through the old masters, we learn how to find our life’s meaning, how to achieve it in less-than-ideal circumstances, and even how to deal with those who oppose it.
We also see how power fantasies about being the strongest are just that: fantasies. Those who were the strongest often became men of weak character compensating for terrible childhoods, many end their days trusting—and trusted by—nobody.
At the same time, we see how successfully imposing our will on the world might be what eventually destroys us.
And so it is that we must look beyond greatness and cultivate a different kind of superiority. Emulate the hyper-competent without falling prey to dogmatic hero-worship.
To navigate tough times we have to find the middle path between extremes, help others whenever possible, and communicate in ways that our targets understand.
Above all else, life remains worth living only if we can grow with our pain, take our pleasures seriously, and notice how fortunate we are to be alive right now with the amazing people who share this planet.
People like you, who took the time to read these articles.
Thank you. I can only hope to bring you better in the years to come!
Yes. Happy new year! Look forward to reading more!