Huh....I think I know this story from someone! lol. What I love about this story is how remarkably close we are to other non-human beings and the responsibility we have to self-regulate so that we can commune with them. The bull, to me, represents how our behaviors on earth impact all those around us - the energy that we send out they can understand and sense at a primal level.
This reminds me of 1) the Hemingway story "The Capitol of the World", which is about bullfighting, fear, and proving your masculinity and 2) this phrase I came across, "creative weakness", which to me is the idea of deliberately standing down in a confrontation and being humble. There must be a strength if knowing that you can win a fight and choosing not to. I can't fight, so I wouldn't know what that's like, but in Aikido as partners you take turns being attacker and defender, and there again, there's the concept of protecting your attacker and trying to do minimal damage. They say in a fight the best thing you can do is run away.
That's really Interesting Henry! I will definitely check out the Hemingway recommendation which seems to be on point with this opening chapter. I also never heard of this creative weakness concept, can't seem to find it anywhere, all I am getting from Google is tips and tricks on winning job interviews :D Please send a link if you have it. The Aikido bit reminds me a lot of capoeira where the purpose of kicking someone is to allow them to escape from it not to actually hit them. Partners similarly take turns and the real purpose to provide an act of fighting which is pleasing to the audience. The better of a mirror you are to your partner, the better you are of a fighter/ capoeirista! Sounds very similar to what you described and I never thought of Aikido that way. Thanks for sharing and providing the very first comment on the book!
I didn't realize Capoeira had that element, almost that you want your opponent to be able to dance away from the "fight".
I got that phrase, "Creative Weakness," from a New Yorker article on Thomas Jefferson; hopefully you can access it here. If not, I'll try to clip the relevant section. It comes towards the end:
In a world as compromised as ours, a soul so exalted was always destined for the Cross. Jefferson’s Bible ends before the Resurrection, with Jesus crucified by the Roman occupiers, as the Gospels tell us he was. Jefferson’s austere editing turns the killing almost into an afterthought—a desiccated reiteration of Socrates’ final encounter with hemlock, the simple consequence of having offended the wrong people. For Thurman, the Crucifixion was an emphatic lesson in creative weakness: by sticking out his neck and accepting the full implications of his own vulnerability, Christ had radically identified himself with the worst off. Those societal castoffs who could never get a break now had a savior, and a champion, and a model. This, for Thurman, is as great a teaching as anything that Jesus merely said. Where death, for Jefferson’s Jesus, is an ending, for Thurman’s it is a necessary precondition—just a start.
Nice. This is a really interesting theme of the power of surrender. I've always loved Phaedrus which breaks down the last thoughts of Socrates before he invests the hemlock. Its mostly about reincarnation and how opposites come from each other : night and day / fairness and unfairness/ life and death...I've never connected socrated to Jesus though. They do have very similar endings/beginnings...Thanks for that tickling thought Henry! I feel like we found a topic worth one of them long winded endless conversations for the next rainy day we'll be chilling on your couch in New Orleans! Thanks for sharing this!
Huh....I think I know this story from someone! lol. What I love about this story is how remarkably close we are to other non-human beings and the responsibility we have to self-regulate so that we can commune with them. The bull, to me, represents how our behaviors on earth impact all those around us - the energy that we send out they can understand and sense at a primal level.
Yup! That last sentence really sums it up nicely. Check out my audio episode 1 with this someone ;) Just out today: https://gumption.substack.com/p/ep01-talking-to-bulls-and-more
This reminds me of 1) the Hemingway story "The Capitol of the World", which is about bullfighting, fear, and proving your masculinity and 2) this phrase I came across, "creative weakness", which to me is the idea of deliberately standing down in a confrontation and being humble. There must be a strength if knowing that you can win a fight and choosing not to. I can't fight, so I wouldn't know what that's like, but in Aikido as partners you take turns being attacker and defender, and there again, there's the concept of protecting your attacker and trying to do minimal damage. They say in a fight the best thing you can do is run away.
That's really Interesting Henry! I will definitely check out the Hemingway recommendation which seems to be on point with this opening chapter. I also never heard of this creative weakness concept, can't seem to find it anywhere, all I am getting from Google is tips and tricks on winning job interviews :D Please send a link if you have it. The Aikido bit reminds me a lot of capoeira where the purpose of kicking someone is to allow them to escape from it not to actually hit them. Partners similarly take turns and the real purpose to provide an act of fighting which is pleasing to the audience. The better of a mirror you are to your partner, the better you are of a fighter/ capoeirista! Sounds very similar to what you described and I never thought of Aikido that way. Thanks for sharing and providing the very first comment on the book!
I didn't realize Capoeira had that element, almost that you want your opponent to be able to dance away from the "fight".
I got that phrase, "Creative Weakness," from a New Yorker article on Thomas Jefferson; hopefully you can access it here. If not, I'll try to clip the relevant section. It comes towards the end:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/what-thomas-jefferson-could-never-understand-about-jesus
Here's the excerpt:
In a world as compromised as ours, a soul so exalted was always destined for the Cross. Jefferson’s Bible ends before the Resurrection, with Jesus crucified by the Roman occupiers, as the Gospels tell us he was. Jefferson’s austere editing turns the killing almost into an afterthought—a desiccated reiteration of Socrates’ final encounter with hemlock, the simple consequence of having offended the wrong people. For Thurman, the Crucifixion was an emphatic lesson in creative weakness: by sticking out his neck and accepting the full implications of his own vulnerability, Christ had radically identified himself with the worst off. Those societal castoffs who could never get a break now had a savior, and a champion, and a model. This, for Thurman, is as great a teaching as anything that Jesus merely said. Where death, for Jefferson’s Jesus, is an ending, for Thurman’s it is a necessary precondition—just a start.
Nice. This is a really interesting theme of the power of surrender. I've always loved Phaedrus which breaks down the last thoughts of Socrates before he invests the hemlock. Its mostly about reincarnation and how opposites come from each other : night and day / fairness and unfairness/ life and death...I've never connected socrated to Jesus though. They do have very similar endings/beginnings...Thanks for that tickling thought Henry! I feel like we found a topic worth one of them long winded endless conversations for the next rainy day we'll be chilling on your couch in New Orleans! Thanks for sharing this!