Thought ⁽²⁾

Among the various philosophies of survival, the one I most esteem is sui yu er an—being at peace whatever one encounters. Whatever comes, one meets it calmly and takes it as a matter of course, unaffected by the outside world or by one's own lot.

Goethe called the “seeing” in discussing art the ability to “enter, comprehend fully, and penetrate.” To comprehend fully is to be unbiased; to penetrate is to be without obstruction; to enter yet be able to exit is nearly to be free of the blindness that…