Scott: So, does getting it or not getting it really make any practical difference in our individual- and collective-flourishing?
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Zz: Well, let’s first go back to your previous question: Does any of this blabber make a difference? And the answer to that is clearly Yes. We’re having fun are we not?
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Scott: In that case, most all blabbering is practically beneficial. Even your buddy Huizi’s five carts full of blabber was contributing to his happiness.
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Zz: Of course it was. So, why do you say even?
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Scott: Well, because in the Tianxia he is dismissed as an egoist who wrote just to further his self-aggrandizement, for one thing. And you too criticized him for never going beyond words, for another.
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Zz: Surely you know better than to take the Tianxia’s assessment seriously? And I was criticizing his philosophy—not him—and on a different level. But the point is, on a certain level—before we answer the question of the efficacy of our philosophy—which, by the way, was the core issue between Huizi and myself—we can at least see that it has an efficacy just in the doing of it.
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Scott: Okay, I see that. So, on that level it doesn’t matter whether we get it or don’t get it. But there remains the question of whether getting that Dao is valueless actually makes any practical difference in one’s life. And the answer is . . . ?
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Zz: If I tell you it made for more a difference in my own enjoyment of life than Huizi’s did for him, would that have any bearing on whether it does or might in yours?
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Scott: Why is this area of inquiry making me so uncomfortable?
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Zz: Because you want to believe in some true and effective remedy—one that is better than the others. And if we say getting it or not getting it are effectively the same, then you don’t have one. None of it really matters! In the end, your need for this perspective to be more effective than others is a . . . religious desire.
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Scott: No! Not my bête noire!
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Zz: Yes! Why do you think it is your bête noire—if not because you have discovered it living in your own mind?