Tag: Excellence

• June 18, 2013

  ‘Why is Tu Fu sad?’ asks the master

  ‘Why is Tu Fu sad?’ asks the master. A Poem About Radiance ‘It is obvious,’ replies the first pupil. ‘It is, as Tu Fu says: the longest bough has been broken.’ A second pupil differs: ‘The world is unjust: the violent and strong will always crack and break the weak and frail. Had we not…
• April 26, 2013

  Can we tell an alternative story of not being at home?

  ‘The one who masters walking leaves no footprints. / The one who masters speaking makes no slips of the tongue.’ —Daodejing 27, trans. Wenlong Lu and Keith Wayne Brown I believe one could write an alternative story of human embodiment, worldly engagement, and understanding that would not avail itself of a psychologist’s categories but would…
• November 29, 2011

  Gladwell’s 10,000 rule for success and Aristotle’s reply

  So a wise guy goes up to Malcolm Gladwell and asks him, “Hey, bub, can you tell me how you get to Carnegie Hall?” Gladwell, seeing that the guy’s probably in his early 60s, doesn’t miss a beat: “Of course. From here, you just take the N/Q/R to 57th St. and then walk a block…