The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the notion of attunement and the necessity of revitalizing stagnant ideas within our society. We delve into the metaphor of decay, illustrated by an image from Chinese philosophy depicting a bowl of food that has become infested, symbolizing the stagnation of both creativity and political thought. We advocate for the urgent need to "clean the bowl," which entails acknowledging the current state of disarray and the prevalence of unhelpful ideas that pervade public discourse. Through our discussion, we emphasize the value of independent thinking and the importance of fostering a humane society that embraces diverse perspectives, particularly in the context of our nation’s immigrant heritage. Ultimately, we contend that a commitment to deep reflection and a collective effort toward humanity can lead us toward a more vibrant and just society.

This image of “cleaning the bowl” comes from the I Ching…a root text of both Taoism and Confucianism.

We talk about how ideas decay, and how the Way calls us to renew them: not with outrage, but with alignment.

This clip is from The Living Conversation, our ongoing dialogue on clarity, rhythm, and return.

#taoism #iching #stillness #philosophy #culturalrenewal #clarity

Get full access to The Way Between at thewaybetween.substack.com/subscribeTakeaways:

• The conversation emphasizes the necessity of refreshing stagnant ideas to foster creativity and progress.
• We discussed how acknowledging problems is essential to address and improve societal issues effectively.
• Immigrants are portrayed as vital sources of innovation and resilience within our evolving society.
• The podcast highlights the importance of broad education as a foundation for independent and humane thinking.
• Stagnation in societal ideas can lead to decay, necessitating a concerted effort to revive them.
• Humanity and the acknowledgment of historical injustices are crucial for a more united and compassionate society.

The discussion commences with Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz sharing their reflections on the current societal climate, characterized by a sense of stagnation and discontent. Wright introduces a potent metaphor derived from Chinese philosophy, specifically a hexagram signifying decay. The imagery of a stagnant bowl of food corrupted by maggots serves as a profound analogy for the ideas and creative energies that have become stagnant within contemporary discourse. Rather than attributing blame to individuals, Wright emphasizes that it is the ideas themselves that have failed to evolve, leading to a cultural malaise. He posits that just as one must clean a decayed bowl, we too must refresh our ideas to rejuvenate our collective consciousness and foster a more humane society. Through this lens, the conversation invites listeners to reflect deeply on the nature of our political and cultural landscape, urging an acknowledgment of the decay present in our ideologies and the necessity of renewal.

As the dialogue unfolds, the hosts explore the historical context of immigration in the United States, recognizing it as a vital source of vitality and innovation. Dietz underlines the resilience and determination of immigrant populations throughout history, suggesting that their contributions have been instrumental in shaping the nation’s character. This leads to a broader discussion on the need for a comprehensive educational framework that promotes independent thinking and a well-rounded understanding of the world. The hosts assert that a liberal education, encompassing the humanities, arts, and sciences, is essential for nurturing engaged and thoughtful citizens. They advocate for a renaissance of intellectual curiosity and creativity, suggesting that such an approach can counteract the prevailing sentiment of despair and foster a more vibrant society.

Towards the conclusion of the episode, Wright and Dietz emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the historical injustices faced by Native Americans and African Americans. They argue that without acknowledging these foundational issues, the country cannot hope to fulfill its potential. The conversation culminates in a call to action for individuals to engage in meaningful dialogue and cultivate a culture of empathy and understanding. By collectively addressing the stagnation of ideas and fostering a renewed sense of humanity, the hosts contend that we can create a more inclusive and dynamic society, ultimately striving toward a shared vision of greatness that is rooted in compassion and respect for all individuals.

Anthony.

I'm Anthony Wright, and this is the Living Conversation on Attunement.

And I'm here with my host, Adam Dietz.

And how you doing, Adam?

I'm doing really well.

I'm doing really well.

Just, you know, always a lot going on, but always trying, you know, to.

I'm really happy to be here, being part of the conversation.

Keep cultivating good connections and keeping human, keeping humane, keeping humanity.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm doing really well, you know, considering, for sure.

Considering.

Yeah.

I wanted to reflect what's been going on for me, and I've been reflecting kind of the state of what's going on in the world.

And I came across an image in Chinese Philosophy which I will share the screen and also for our viewers speak about.

This is the hexagram ghoul, which is also termed decay.

And the image is of a bowl of food that was stagnant and now has maggots in it.

And you can't eat food like that.

So that's the image that you can see on the screen there.

But I'll come back here and I would, I, I will refrain from saying that it's because of people.

I'm not gonna call people maggots because that's, that's not, I don't want, I'm not attacking people, but it's the ideas that are stagnant, both in terms of creativity and some of the political ideas that are being offered.

And I think in an earlier session, I had talked about what some of the political influencers are talking about flooding the zone with crap.

And one of the ways that we can deal with that is become treatment plant employees and understand how to deal with the flood of crap.

It's simply crap, and it can be processed for fertilizer.

Back to this idea of a bowl of food that has been left to stagnate, and now there are maggots in it.

We got to clean the bowl.

And I had just played for you before we came on the Aaron Sorkin Newsroom clip with Mel Will McAvoy about America isn't the greatest country in the world anymore.

And one of the things he says in closing, that is, if order to solve a problem, we've got to acknowledge there is one.

So to say, look, you know, in our food, in our, our, our sacred ideas, they've gotten kind of stagnant.

And there are those of us who have kind of taken for granted what's been happening for the last 40 years about that.

We're right.

And it's just.

That's the way that it's supposed to be.

And that's gotten kind of stagnant and we haven't refreshed it, and now there's maggots in it.

So we've got to clean the bowl and to say, okay, to call.

To call it what it is, you know, that.

But that ideas that are not humane are poisonous.

And to say.

And to continue to refresh our joy in being in this country that's a country of immigrants, that's a country of ideas, and to continue to refresh that.

And I wanted.

We talked before we came on the air here about there's been an error with people conflating this term of liberal with some sort of political ideology.

And that there may be a political ideology that's liberal, but in, in an educational sense, this idea of liberal means independent thinking, means broad based education, means experience with philosophy and art and theater and dance and athletics and all of the STEM fields.

To have a broad education that's broader than simply a, A vocational trade.

And not to say that there's anything wrong with that, because I've been a piano technician now 55 years, and yet I think it's important to have a broad education for the public because that's one of the reasons why our Department of Education and this idea that everybody in the country ought to be able to read, they ought to be able to do relatively simple math and they ought to be able to write.

But that brings us together as a country and to say, oh, everything is corrupt.

You know, it's all crap.

Well, that's the maggots in the bowl.

And that's some ideas that are poisonous.

So that's part of the image that I've been working with this morning.

And it seems.

It seems resonant.

Does that seem to make some sense to you?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

A lot of things come up as you're speaking about that, for sure.

And I know there's also an imagery in Chinese philosophy that has to do with that.

A pool.

It can be stagnant.

It needs fresh water to come in.

Yeah.

So that's when you said nation of immigrants.

It's like, man, that is what made us amazing.

All these immigrants then they all had.

They all had to deal with the same kind of crap that this generation of immigrants are having to deal with to varying degrees.

But they all just kicked ass, man.

Each generation of immigrants, Irish, German, of course, you know, British.

And we have to acknowledge the wisdom of the Native Americans.

Yeah, yeah.

They're saying, how can you own land?

Yeah, no, that's right.

When I was speaking, I was thinking about, I was thinking about, man, that's the.

Speaking of not being the greatest country, we can never, never reach our potential unless we first acknowledge the two original sins of, of our, our country, the Native Americans and the African American.

Just, just, just.

We can never do enough to make up for that.

And remember the word sin in, In.

I believe it's in Greek, means just to miss the point.

And it's that we, many people coming to this country were inhumane with its Native occupants.

Exactly the exact same thing about the humanity was the missing, the missing part there.

And can you imagine how beautiful this country would have been if we preserved Native American culture and just kind of built around it and, and integrated it and weaved through it and we had vi.

Vibrant Native communities that were still all throughout this land.

And that would be just incredible if there were me walks out my window that were integrating modernity as at their choice and living their traditional lifestyle at their choice.

It's coming back, you know, vibrant.

Would that have been?

But yeah, so, you know, humanity is the key, right?

For every generation.

For every generation.

And as you were speaking, the one.

This image of a stagnated pool came to me from Chinese philosophy where you need fresh water.

The immigrants have always been the fresh water innovators, hard workers that come to the country.

They love it more than anyone.

They came here through great trial and tribulation to talk about wanting to make a country great.

They came here with the hopes and dreams like Statue of Liberty, you know.

Right, right.

I definitely hear what you're saying, man.

For sure, there's, and there's a few other things that come up, but that's the one thing that image was.

The image.

Well, just the other thing that came up was, was, you know, so much that came up under FDR was about helping people be more humane, having, having.

A vibrant conversation, social safety net, you know.

Well, I'm thinking about right now our living conversation.

FDR wanted, wanted this, the country to have a vibrant conversation, that it wasn't pulled too much one way or another.

There were a lot of media standards and, and you, you could go on, you probably remember this better than me, but you could go on and, and watch like Noam Chomsky on public TV on ABC on a Sunday morning, debate against, you're talking about very far left type of thinker to Debate against a very doll.

And these are, and these are people with sincerity, with humanity, for the most part.

For the most part debating about how to make the country great.

Not, not just lowest common denominator stuff, demonizing other people, inhumane conversation.

Absolutely.

Big time decay from that to now, for sure.

Right.

Yeah.

I remember you were talking about people who are engaged in low effort thinking.

And it's not to say that the people are bad, it's just that to develop actually the joy of thinking deeply.

Right.

Which is present.

I think it's possible.

And also I can say as a tradesman, the joy of practicing a trade.

You know, for me to, to bring a piano to transparency with its, with its beautiful sound, or for a gardener to bring forth beautiful food or for a plumber to make the plumbing in a home work special things, you know.

Your education and your human feeling doesn't make it better.

Even better, the more you learn, doesn't it make your piano tuning even more interesting?

Yeah.

And I have to say, the piano God has taught me an awful lot about, about how the cosmos works, not only about the instruments, but about where they are, you know, whose home they're in, and, and then the emotional, the emotional state of the owner and it seems to be reflected in the piano.

There was the poet Robert Bly talked about once about how, and this is going kind of off on a tangent, but how the physical articles in a room would absorb the emotions of that room and too much anger would cause the dining room table to crack.

You know, and that seems to make sense in an allegorical way.

But, but anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for us to be able to get into that because it's, it's a place to start.

I mean, just to acknowledge there is one.

And even in our program, this is where we're starting to say, okay, time to clean the bowl.

And, you know, so.

You mentioned low effort thinking.

So there's also a good we, you and I talk about all the time.

Taoism, Lao Tzu.

It's good sometimes to let your mind settle, relax, not have not.

I'd be strained.

I have effort.

But you have, you have, you know, active side and a restful side.

So sometimes we all need low effort thinking.

But when we're, when we're going to important issues, we want to have really cultivated mind that can contemplate the deeper, the deeper issues, that can remember humanity, that can remember the most important things of being a human being, that have wisdom.

So there's two sides to it.

Yes.

We all need low effort thinking.

We all, we all want to come home and shut down our brains.

Brains.

And watch a really stupid television show.

We all want that.

I mean, to some extent, everyone wants to shut down their brains one way or another.

Maybe you're.

Maybe yours is watching a reality show.

Maybe yours is reading a book.

Maybe yours is playing guitar.

We all want to relax.

Enough going on.

So we all want low effort thinking, but not in how to structure our society.

We should have a concerned mind for everyone.

How to make our country great is not low effort thinking.

We need to make a great effort together.

Then we decide together how to make our country more human.

If all of us are better, then our country will be better.

You don't make people worse to have a better country.

You don't hurt people to have a better country.

Right.

Well, and we have to take a short break.

I'm Anthony Wright and you can contact me@theonaught.com t h e o n a o t.com and Adam, I'm doing a.

Lot of work that's under the name the Way between.

So you can find me.

Instagram.

Yeah, Instagram.

TikTok.

Substack.

So on substack is the Way between.

And that's where most of the work will be centered on substack, including our podcast, Living Conversation.

Great.

Okay, we're going to take a short break and be right back, so stay tuned.