Re:I am nothing
by Joeri on Sunday August 21, 2011 @02:51AM
(#2908681)
I disagree that the author was exagerating when he said that you must become nothing to be truly free. I think it's not about permanently erasing your own identity, but about being able to change perceptions at will.
There are two states we can be in: acting and reflecting. When we are acting, we have to rely on all of our accumulated skill, so we must be confident that we know what we are doing. But afterwards, when we are reflecting on what we've done, we must drop all pretense of having skill and knowledge, and take an outsider's view of our own work. To make a fully honest appraisal of what we're doing we must forget that it is our own work. We must be nothing to see everything.
There are two states we can be in: acting and reflecting. When we are acting, we have to rely on all of our accumulated skill, so we must be confident that we know what we are doing. But afterwards, when we are reflecting on what we've done, we must drop all pretense of having skill and knowledge, and take an outsider's view of our own work. To make a fully honest appraisal of what we're doing we must forget that it is our own work. We must be nothing to see everything.