兩篇有關台灣的文章-旺報 & Washington Post

偶然看見兩篇有關台灣的報導介紹. 令人愉悅!

轉 Post (一)

大陸人在台灣－我變得真切了

旺報 李斐盈／廈門大學

http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/110410/140/2pjqg.html

生活在台灣的人是幸福的，也是幸運的。雖然有貧富之分，卻沒有富翁與乞丐那般的天壤之別；雖然社會競爭很激烈，但是人們卻堅信奮鬥的花會結豐碩的果。也許「美國夢」在台灣也可以實現。

和台灣人一起生活學習，讓我變得真切了，不需要偽裝，只需要真實的心，真實的自己。

面對台灣人，我的心是敞開的，輕鬆的，因為他們對我同樣坦誠相見。樂觀、開朗是我形容他們的詞彙，不論是計程車司機還是便利店服務生，當我跟他們攀談的時候總是會被他們的快樂所感染；不論是年長還是年幼，他們都保持著一顆天真的童心，熱愛生活，感恩自己擁有的一切。

台灣人樸實得像山、熱情得像海，他們會竭盡全力幫助別人，有時接受恩惠甚至會讓我覺得難為情。

我不禁發問，是什麼樣的水土孕育了這般的人文氣息。我不知道答案，卻又覺得答案已在我心中。在台灣，我找到了自己的幸福，我想為之努力，我會為之努力。

(二) Reveling in the real Taiwan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/reveling-in-the-real-taiwain/2011/03/25/AFqOAD2C_story.html

By Erin Meister, Friday, April 8, 12:20 PM

At Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, a customs agent takes my passport and eyes it suspiciously. He looks up at me, one eyebrow raised. “Why have you come to Taiwan?” he demands.

0

Graphic

Graphic:

More On This Story

• Reveling in the real Taiwan
• Details: If you go to Taiwan

“I heard it was a beautiful place,” I reply nervously, and the official’s gaze suddenly softens. He clutches his hands to his heart and grins widely.

“We are so happy to have you here,” he says. “I hope you find it beautiful, and tell everyone where you are from how friendly we are.”

Then he stamps my documents and waves me in, beaming long after I pass through the airport doors.

Although it has something of an international reputation as “China lite,” Taiwan possesses a vibrant national identity and pride of its own. Despite (or perhaps because of) lingering Chinese, Japanese and Dutch colonial influences, the sweet-potato-shaped island has fought to express its cultural, economic and political independence, and a strong youth culture combined with the marks of more than a dozen aboriginal tribes lend it today a dynamic air of self-rediscovery.

My delight in exploring the country’s capital city, Taipei, comes after I shed any lingering dreams of pagodas and rolling rice paddies; instead, I quickly learn to love slipping through dark, dusty doorways into shops, restaurants and seemingly secret cubbyholes where cool urban natives and hip travelers go to find the real Taiwan.

That’s what I’m after on this trip: Local color in every shape and form.

Thanks to the country’s rekindled pride, “Made in Taiwan” no longer implies the cheap production of plastic novelty items. Instead, it signifies a newfound emphasis on the local designer, the unmistakably Taiwanese artisan.

I discover an undeniable diamond in the rough inFigure 21, a don’t-blink sliver of a leather-goods boutique hidden in one of the East District’s many unassuming corridors. Each piece here — deliberately cockeyed change purses and meticulously hand-stitched saddlebags — has a personality of its own. The buttery-warm smell of leather hangs in the air of the studio-like boutique, where rough-and-ready briefcases rest casually alongside oddball knickknacks and vintage books, as though absent-mindedly left behind on a living-room shelf.Finding them, however, can be difficult. Some of Taipei’s most adventuresome and innovative producers are tucked into the city’s claustrophobic back alleys. You have to brave the many mopeds whizzing recklessly by to reach them. But the peril’s worth it.

Venturing northeast, near the Zhongshan MRT Station, I pop into another pair of local-focused shops for a quick look around — and end up losing much of an afternoon. At the quirky, minimalist Booday, I score an armload of unique, hipstery goodies, giddily browsing through stacks of chopsticks in hand-sewn pouches, off-kilter canvas bags and playfully rough-hewn jewelry. Founded by a group of friends as a design label in 2003, Booday not only produces its own line of screen-printed notebooks that sell for about $6-$10, carry-alls ($50-$76) and T-shirts ($15-$30), it also stocks and promotes local art and artists and publishes its own quarterly magazine. In the homey upstairs cafe, I can’t decide whether to munch a house-made sandwich or get lost among the stacks of CDs by Taiwanese musicians. So naturally I find time for both.

Next door to Booday is Lovely Taiwan, a not-for-profit shop focusing on aboriginal handicrafts and art from outlying villages — from intricately detailed animal statuettes (about $26) to hand-woven fabrics adorned with native patterns (about $40). At first drawn to more banal goodies such as soaps peppered with dried local herbs, I soon find myself puzzling over a set of beautiful bottles of honey- and plum-infused drinking vinegar for about $12. A sweet-and-sour favorite throughout East Asia, sipping vinegar is often served in small cups between meal courses, purportedly to aid digestion and balance your pH. Dozens of mass-produced varieties are sold in the island’s labyrinthine grocery stores, but I was pleased to find small-batch flasks to use as an unusual cocktail mixer back home.

From mid-May, when the humidity skyrockets, sunbrella-toting locals forgo the charm of the shopping alleys to duck from one mammoth air-conditioned department store to the next. While Western designers are well represented here, most of the better malls feature local producers as well; I happily skip past racks of Calvin Klein jeans for hometown hoodies by T-shirt designer ’0416.

At the Xinyi District’s not-just-books flagship Eslite Bookstore, you can meander through seven floors stocked with gorgeous tea sets, funky pillows, hi-tech gadgets and unique stationery from Taipei-based craftspeople. Of course, the books are notable, too: The stunning photographs in such regional tour books as “Taiwan Tribes Travel” by the local publisher Guide make them great souvenirs even if you don’t read Mandarin.

Department store food courts, meanwhile, offer some of Taipei’s most delicious and inexpensive bites: crave-worthy shaved ice topped with fresh fruit (tsua bing), sizzling bibimbap (rice with vegetables), made-to-order sushi, fried rice, barbecue and even the odd twist on Western food (cone-shaped pizza, submarine sandwiches stuffed with sliced fruit). Staking out a table can be stressful, but no one seems to mind my hungry hovering as I wait to pounce on a seat.

Classic pork dumplings arrive screaming hot, and waiting for the morsels to cool enough before sucking out the broth is a challenge. Despite the warnings on every table about proper soup-dumpling technique, my tongue wags painfully after the first bite. Once they’re cool enough, though, the soft, salty snacks disappear quickly.

Graphic

Graphic:

More On This Story

• Reveling in the real Taiwan
• Details: If you go to Taiwan

Probably no comestible is as quintessentially Taiwanese as the xiaochi, or “little eats,” found at Taipei City’s night markets. Some of these nocturnal haunts are meandering collections of stalls and food carts on streets lined with clothing and record shops (such as the Times Square-like Ximending marketplace). Others are more formal structures. The oldest of these is the covered food court at Shilin, where diners have sampled the wares of more than 500 peddlers since 1910. Year-round, a crush of students, midnight noshers and hipsters fills the pleasingly run-down enclosure lined with stalls hawking deep-fried milk, oyster omelets and da chang bao xiao chang (literally “big sausage wraps small sausage” — the little sausage is pork, stuffed inside a casing made from compressed glutinous rice).

I brace myself for another culinary rite of passage: trying chou doufu (“stinky tofu”), fermented blocks of spongy bean curd often served deep-fried and topped with pickled vegetables and a gooey, bittersweet sauce. The snack’s stench varies from vendor to vendor, but its bark can mercifully be worse than the first bite. Pleasantly chewy, it has a slightly sour flavor with a pungent, mustardlike kick.

In daylight, Taipei has a run-down quality that no one would blame you for describing as dingy. Summer’s extreme humidity leaves tracks of mold on many facades. The modern, glass-fronted buildings surrounding the massive skyscraper Taipei 101 in the Xinyi District suggest a shift toward cleaner, starker development, but a trip to older parts of the city reveals hidden corners untouched by modernity.

The oldest section, Wanhua, with its winding corridors and quiet decay, offers a glimpse of the city’s bygone days. At its bustling heart is the busy Longshan Temple. I bump past a flurry of tourists, worshipers and monks selling prayer beads outside the gates to reach the controlled chaos within, where hundreds of faithful light incense and present offerings at myriad shrines to Buddha and other deities.

Students in starched uniforms are a common sight here, coming to plead for high marks on exams and good news at the end of the school term. Other visitors leave gifts of remembrance or tokens meant to assist the unlucky in love.

In the temple’s shadow is the claustrophobic artery known as Herb Alley, a hub for Chinese-medicine vendors. Pushing past loosely bundled dried roots and dried shark fins dangling from hooks, I peruse open bags of exotic dried mushrooms, fragrant rose petals and pungent tangles of ginger and ginseng.

A short walk from Herb Alley is the city’s wholesale fabric district. At its nucleus stands a crumbling two-story building crammed with textile merchants advertising silks, satins and variations on the most popular local pattern: a vibrantly colored background splayed with peonies or other bright flowers, often referred to simply as “floral cloth.” After bargaining with a vendor selling the stuff sewn into pillowcases, I snatch it up elsewhere by the yard to use as eye-catching gift wrap.

Interested in more time travel, I take a leisurely day trip to the lush tea-growing region of Maokong, which involves a breathtaking if vertigo-inducing sky-gondola ride. The mountain’s former fame as an oolong-producing region has faded, but the gondola’s slow, 25-minute climb gives you an incredible bird’s-eye view of tiny backyard vegetable gardens and temples snuggled in the dense foliage below.

Once in hilly Maokong, I have some serious hiking to do before reaching the strip of Zhinan, the main road flanked by teahouses. I settle on a teahouse high atop a ledge for the fabled tea ceremony: a way of systematically brewing and re-brewing the leaves to draw out their flavor.

There’s often a little wistful local mysticism offered while the oolong unfurls in its clay pot. “I grew up here, and moved to the city as a young man,” the tea merchant says quietly as he pours bitter green liquid into my cup. “It gets so dark here at night, some people are afraid. But I missed this place, and I came back. I’m not afraid of the mountain. It is my home; I am from here.”

Just like the steaming cup of tea before me, he is very proudly made in Taiwan.

Meister is a New York-based writer, coffee professional and author of the blog the Nervous Cook (www.thenervouscook.com).

Some malls boast fantastic sit-down eateries as well. The famous xiao long bao (steamed soup dumplings) at venerable Shanghai-style chow house Din Tai Fung are worth the long wait for a table on the basement level of the Fuxing District’s Pacific SOGO department store. Huge glass windows separate hungry patrons from the dumplingistas in the kitchen, so you can watch them hand-rolling each perfect little pouch.

Art, Originality and Demolition

Breaking down as building up ---- Zen Paradox

Luchia Meihua Lee

Artistic originality and self-criticism are inextricable. Artist rebel against their original concept constantly. Thus, work of art never fulfills its completeness.

Voices From A Locked Room, a film base on a really story happen in London in the year of 1930. Perter Warlock, a symphony composer, at same time, he is Philip Hestine, a local music critic. Hestine always wrote scathing review toward Peter Warlock’s composition music, and he left concert hall during the music performed he cannot bear to listen those awkward symphony that composed by Warlock. Then, Warlock sent threatens letters to Hestine to protect his works. They do not recognize each other. By incident, a singer involved as girlfriend of both, had discovered Hestine and Warlock are actually the same person. This thriller film explored the territory between love and genies and madness. Composer’s pursued perfect work arose anxious critic sensation. He became a self-work critic under unconsciously. This kind of suicide thought and behavior is endless until the life end. Likewise, in the end of film, this schizophrenia composer/critic kill him by self-doubt.

Originality keeps art in authentic, purity and intuitive, it is self-reference and self-interpret. Artist one who, try to manage certain material and their original idea, transform the concept from original creativity to a visible or performable form. During creating process, artist put floating thought into real form, when work finished, art starts to question its authenticity and degenerate their origin creativity, and then, rebuild another new idea, therefore, old concept and composition never lasting long. Originality destructs itself keeping ideal reconstruct. The representation base on present’s demolition, this demolition becomes a seeds of new re-present. Those initiate motivational relationships become an ambiguous psychological chain. (Note)

“Each time we celebrate the birth of a new born child, we must prepare to mourn its death,” the statement of Taiwanese artist Tien-Yu Hung in the “Rain Forest” exhibition. Declared nature’s ingenuity and demolition, in Hung”s painting, revealed the ruin of all fertile land, forests and streams, a complete full space landscape turn to accelerate a mass gray man-made structure, a gradually increase white space symbolized but the contours of empty.

The next painting in the same category called “Rain Forest-Time, Element, Water, Clouds. Forest. River.” Made by Henry Tsao, a Taiwanese- Swaziland artist, his paintings are covered by density layers of white paint left invisible color, we can only imagine those work are still under creating process. When Hery Tsao put his work on show, a destroy action always performed, During the “Rain Forest” opening night, he threw and spilt white paint onto surface of canvas, covered the forest scene of his painting. After short mediation, he song along with slowly martial art body movement, a rice paper folded lotus also installed on the ground, a self-made long brush put in a boat-shape paint container, those icon is highly ritualistic and spiritual symbol.(note) When the first broad stroke touch the canvas, seemingly just like writing a Chinese calligraphy in his finished painting, gradually, he use his palm wiping out of canvas. The destroy trace of a white paint let his work became an unfinished painting. In here, a disappeared forest was formed. at the same time; a question of incomplete product was declared.

Henry Tsao’s “destroy action performance” demonstrate how he is try to wipe out of the past, but this is not simply discarding the past, a sort of ‘repacking’ the old past in a new conception. To negate the old picture’s façade, is equal to using the newest result to replace the just –past result. This is an endless process as well as a suicide game. He set a trap them finds a trick to escape it. Each exhibition time, he decreases his painting under the increasing process. The products-painting become meaningless, this ritual process declares it end. And also the reborn under the ritualistic action. A new work is in effect parasite living off an old one.

In this “Rain Forest “ international painting show, many of photo realistic art works presented beauty of rain forest, a huge acrylic painting made by female artist Marlene Yu, expressed a abstract floating scenery, show the sunshine overflow through top of leaves, and create forest phenomena in exhibition space, therefore audience and forest and painting was un-separate. Suzan Kuhn Juxtapose traditional European painting with Asian style element combined a romantic approach to nature as an untouched surreal place. Other painting depicted living species, such as animal and flora in the rain forest, this exhibition is not only to present a beautiful landscape, but also discourse of world’s finite number of shrinking rain forests is most urgent ecological concern. This endangerment accompanied by worldwide cultural distress and political upheaval.

When the installation works down, a beautiful exhibition supposedly complete. Whereas, right now, unless watch video, audience never know the real original painting look like. Artist dismissed curator and his own concept; left audience an unfinished and never finished painting, the definition of exhibition was re-decided by art works and audiences. Through this declared action, artist and curator have changed from an exhibition commander to be a skeptic of escapee from a complete show time history. Over the course of this exhibition and the creative development was re-defined.

We usually think thing have two part; one is changeable such as four season, sun and moon. The other part is never change, like earth heaven. In Chinese I-chin philosophy contain the third part. That is simplicity. Once we apply this philosophy to artwork. it is the structure and principle, also, it is the idealistic, originality. Theoretically, when finish the work, image should exist, while ideal is still fluidly, therefore, when we look the original concept of art is like water, it is change the shape in any moment.

Because form can be erase all the time, we cannot believe image is the entity, therefore, For conceptual artist, any presenting method seemingly less important, and might lost the essence and authentic value. We all believe, to peruse a perfect result is a deadly challenge to artist. When work of art finished. Artist change their relationship in between, from a creator to an intimate spectator. The more they review the work, the more unsatisfied affection happen, self-criticism searches the weakest portion unconsciously, forces them to reject the original concept. Those self-contradictory emotions put the author in difficult situation. When the work put on exhibition, this self-insufficiency intends to persuade audience as part of them to complete work. Thus, the mission of incomplete is to manifest the completeness.

Another point of view, the role of artistic development seen to resonate with the Zen Paradox “Breaking down as building up, ” artist like Henry Tsao or Duchamp or the Composer, started out with the intent of becoming an artist, on a pilgrimage in quest of the Tao or way of art, finally coming to the realization, however, art is construed only in and by one’s own heart and mind can be manifested only through one’s concrete action, and art as Dharma or way of Being goes hand-in-glove with art as a Dharma or way of Nonbeing.

As therefore Derrida argues that phenomenology, as a quest for radical origins and beginnings contains with itself the seeds of its own undoing- it own self-overcoming, is structural self-conflict, and “historical self- differentiation.” (Note)

Seeds is the source of reincarnation and the eruption of original, therefore, the secondhand product contains first element, it also can be recall from collective memory. What artist gives up is finding in the recovery of the truth. It is progression, at the same time, a recession.

The perfect presentation was never taken from real vision. The intuitive leads the expression. Cézanne did not follow contours, and colors and impression of nature. Thus, distortions appeared in his painting, according to Merleau Ponty, Cézanne abandoned himself to the chaos of sensations, which upset the objects and constantly suggested illusion. Just like the composer throws himself in a false impression, the sensation versus judgment, and the critic who listen against the critic who thinks. Sound versus composition, intuitive as opposed to the originality. Composer wants to make the work and the symphony the same; too many notions of sensitivity and sensations come out. Therefore, creator judges his own works. the same why Cezanne perceives the ideas and the nature pure was creating. Emile Bernard called Cézanne’s suicide: aiming for reality while denying himself the means to attain it. Thus, Cézanne thought he would never arrive at the goal that he intensely pursued, and position this statement in terms of in the state of mental agitation.

Merleau Ponty proclaimed there are a connection between Cézanne’s schizoid temperament and his work because the work reveals a metaphysical sense of the disease: a way of seeing the world reduced to the totality of frozen appearances. Artist never satisfies those frozen work because the real world is never frozen. Cézanne mentioned “the landscape thinks itself in me.” Think of this, I am in the motion of landscape. Those moving scenes transform and become on painting; Thus, Monet tried to catch serial landscape from sunrise to sunset when he found the nature light is changing the sight every second. Cézanne devoted in search the essence of scène as well as the sense of himself. Whereas, did they really catch the perfect scène?

One take concept itself as raw material, through add the element of aesthetic theory, he/her become an artist. in conceptual art, the work of art might be a “readymade” object, or invisible like “Air-Condition” of Michael Baldwin, make “an extravaganza blandness.”(note) Only the temperature draws our attention, calls experience, everything cannot be identified. The display room either all white, all black, all gray, those environment cannot influent the air. The air is being itself. That is not the room of air condition or a urinal, because it can be anything and change in next moment.

Cézanne avoid the ready –made, he prefer present the physiognomy of the action rather than their visible aspect. That is basically different with the Duchmpe’s idea. Cézanne never trust the vision that we see, but according Duchampe, the readymade can be art itself, any one can be artist,

Duchamp send urinal as a sculpture to independent artist association, to challenge the principle of “artist” and “art”, this fountain contained visual and conceptual elements of art. It is not only a porcelain urinal on display. He overthrown the definition of artwork authenticity, totally subverts traditional aesthetics. Whereas, himself escaped not only in the beginning and the process, but also escape by acknowledged the discourse of ‘spectator‘ as part of work. He was so smart to get rid of responsibility of when Mealeau Ponty indicated” Thus it is true both that the life of an author can teach us nothing and that if we knew how to interpret it—we can find everything in it.” And while Duchamp declared that spectator act a important part of his work.

their original concept exists already as “Buddha of the Bathroom” by Louise Norton, or “Madonna of the Bathroom” by Duchamp and Stieglitz themselves. This mockery urinal is a simple frontal, iconic art object. Ironically, this original idea took by the innocent audience incidentally. Can we said, art critic and art historian take advantage from those audience’s discover. Until now, researches are still going. Artist is the first interpreter, and the audience is the interpreter ‘s interpreter. Who is really got the real secret code and the mystery or the thousand years sublime. The sublime is already exist, it unconscious, and is the collective memory, an ideal stereotype, exist thousand ears ago.

The contradictory part to quest is, do we really believe what we see is a complete artwork, or just a temporary concert . or might we think about that because Duchamp understand that anything won’t be perfect and won’t lasting , if only depends on artist because artist idea is just held part of shifting circle object, the “ doubt” is like the sharrow always followed.

The inventor and the fellow, who is the real one. Every era have some inventor, and some or follower, their fellow the standard of the former pioneer, not the decision maker, but follow the time, the pioneer become a stylist in the group, they fall into the intersection of new style start, and the old style follower. They lost their way, to keep as a main character of the former genre, or become the follower of new style. This is an ambivalence of most of artists, the master only few because they understand that every form and style were temporary. Follow the fro and ebb. Lost their way in the wave. Even myself , in writing this paper, throw the subject again and again, try to grasp the solid entity can not find, until the paper finished, I still not sure it is a good paper. Or not.

Ostensibly, artistic creation is a private affairs, to Hery Tsao, the process of creation and the act are intimately connected. Like Composer, concert and performances in public venues was not two separate parts. But in front of the audience, the painting was disappear and covering –up with new paint. From spectators, through the texture still trace out the original outline. We on look might gather a second meaning. The sense that modernist have impulse to protest against and bury cultural tradition, East or west. And we sense that from this impulse has further develop into a counteraction against and terminate of any construct conceptual., whether it be tradition or modernism, any –ism to follow, or even the concept of artist itself, in as much as once a thing has taken from it becomes an object to be overthrown and annihilated.

note:

1. ‘ Rain Forest: Painting by International Artists” open In November 2^nd 2001, Henry Tsao was the conjunction program for exhibition opening reception program. Held in Taipei Gallery in New York.,

蘇格拉底的六大問題 (三)

每個人都有因為他未行之善而有罪-----Voltaire

許多人在被炫目的權力及錢財矇蔽, 而忘了自己「根本上的脆弱」-Primo Levi

綠可

太多生活在特權及富裕之中的人, 都認為他們有資格去過現在的生活, 他們很少知道真正貧困的聲音或感覺, 這些與之無關也不是他們的問題, 更實在的狀況是他們事實上並不知道自己的富有, 對於他們來說總覺得金錢或名利地位不足, 這被稱為「富人的盲目」, 因為財富的多寡是相對衡量, 以三千元的數字, 對於一些家庭而言是大數目, 而對於這些不知自己富有的人而言僅為輜銖, 所以當他有了兩倍的金錢數字時並不會知足, 這些人沒有回報於社會之心, 所以在心靈及精神層面反而相當的淺薄匱乏, 顯現一種不自知的侷限性, 這種情形一直會到一種悲劇或是艱困打擊在發生在自己或是親人身上後, 才發現自己的侷限性及弱點。所以在苦難的時期增加對自己的了解, 而去塑造出某種深刻的領悟方式是相當珍貴的, 也算是處於優裕生活的時段, 也應扮演起某種重要的角色去敞開心胸, 培養道德的良知, 讓內心深處的激勵進自己所能, 去做能力所及的一部分善事; 而生活在貧困以及不好遭遇的人, 應去接受現實世界本來的痛苦及無意義, 但絕對不可去接受明明可以避免的人類心靈悲苦; 所以著名的法國文學家伏爾泰說「每個人都有因為他未行之善而有罪」, 若是以善為出發點, 敞開心胸去了解別人所受的苦, 去思考及親近這世界上有許多的兄弟姊妹及有需要人的血淚的聲音, 將可成就更大的善。

勇

要面對自己的恐懼是需要勇氣, 冒險想將狀況改好, 及抱持異議去挑戰既定的秩序是勇, 但勇應繫於動機及目的, 能勇於面對不確定性, 不讓恐懼擭或住我們, 保持開放這一種信念。

約翰甘乃迪在勇者的畫像一書中說道, 當一個人在行動之時, 行其所當為, 不計自身後果, 無視於障礙、 危險及壓力, 這就是人類道德的的基礎, 不論在任何時空中, 每一個人都會面臨挑戰自己勇氣的時候, 我們都要自己決定走哪一條路, 這時必須回到自己的靈魂中去尋找, 方能得到勇氣本身。

在蘇格拉底看起來, 勇氣並非來自無懼, 而是來自有智慧的畏懼, 畏懼失去一種更偉大的善, 一個毫無理由將自己曝露在毫無理由的危險前的人, 是莽撞, 是愚昧, 不可信賴, 而非智與善, 所以蘇的角度, 怯懦不是缺乏膽量, 而是缺乏智慧, 或在逢一種脅迫仍秉持道德勇氣, 當生時生當死時死, 視為真勇, 如同蘇格拉底出自對天下蒼生的愛寬容, 對他人的情感, 同情心與慈悲而赴死, 這一些至高無上的德性, 他有真正的勇所以在死時鎮靜自若。

在柏拉圖對話論中, 蘇格拉底說道, 勇氣是去面對未來的善與惡的知識, 也就是基於過往的經驗, 藉以認清而去認清現在的動向及預知結果, 如每天起床睜開眼睛去面對問題, 也是一種勇, 這就如同三十六期的道歌-”活在當下” , 勇於面對每日真正的自我, 做該做的事, 對人生不無奈, 亦即從肯定自我開始, 以道德勇氣去克服黑暗的力量, 創造出每一個人獨一無二的歌。

虔心

許多的人不相信所所謂的神祇, 而有神論最珍貴的地方在於推翻這一個社會既定的模式, 而去信仰神, 相信這世界上有看不見的存在即是在象界之外, 就如道的理念是逆向走的, 理論是相反於社會當權所公認的規定, 在老子道德經中所提的觀念, 均不是宣揚這世界上既定的模式, 就是引發這一種逆向的思考, 這也才是成道的途徑, 好的真理必定沒有地理時空的限制, 必定走向全世界, 長存宇宙間。

這一個虔Piety, 有宗教上的虔誠, 對父母的孝心, 及對國家的忠誠的三種意義, 蘇格拉底反駁希臘當時智者優提佛羅的虔心是 藉著禱告和獻祭來取悅神的行為及言行, 蘇格拉底認為神不需要做這些生意式的交換, 他確認人的善事來自神, 諸神的本質是無止境的造福。

一項相當重要的觀念就是當人們懷抱渾然一體追求善的意志時, 會想去做淬煉自己的靈魂的事。這是為自己工作也同時是神明要做的事, 虔誠是, 「行神之事, 以造福人類」, 蘇格拉底相信, 在我們把天份運用到極致以成就造福人類事功與行止的同時, 我們也在做對自己最有意義的事, 讓我們自己最快樂的事情, 由此來看這一種激勵他人去過深自反省及檢驗的生活, 也就是探索自我內在宇宙及周遭世界的方法, 如此可導致人類更高的良知, 使人類生活的更有尊嚴。

所以智慧女神雅典娜(Athena)的教導指出, 虔誠是一種選擇, 必須要有尊崇之心 (agiotia) , 必須要有忠誠之心(pistos) , 有智慧的選擇所該尊崇的人及原則, 以及該在什麼時間、什麼地點、忠於什麼人。當今社會有太多的選擇 , 過多的知識及宗教信仰與五花八門的理念充斥, 但真正的光明大道在哪? 以個體的力量並不足以提昇自身的靈性及解決生活上的困境, 有智慧的選擇明師及可幫助的團體, 這種明師就如同蘇格拉底他顛覆傳統及勸人改變信仰的方式, 是在於立下一種典範, 被他勸化入其教者, 無需屈從於任何硬性的教條灌輸, 而是激發及追隨他所奠立獨立自主的節操典範。發自誠心的去學習及尊崇, 經由明理後創造自己的宇宙天, 真正引發生命存在的意義與覺知。

後語

我們相信因為蘇格拉底得到了天命, 所以甘於成為街頭哲學家, 在任何人都可參加的地點舉行對談, 藉由這種接觸, 他啟發了一些原本絕無可能探索哲學的人, 得以親身體驗到這一切, 體會其中愉悅, 而這些人絕對不僅為虔信者, 而是一種得到行善的意志, 這種追求德行的欲望是我們終極的本性, 也就是會願致力於追求成聖成賢之道。古希臘的城邦基礎理念是每一個公民均扮演著 一種角色, 去為自己也為了城邦而去輪流做各種事情, 這也是對生命整體性或一體性的尊重, 一個人在哪裡出生或是他的血統並不重要, 這就是希臘享受自由深度之處, 就如同在一個有道有德的團體中, 每一個人為了成就更大的善業, 而自願去提供特長去做各種事情, 為其所應為, 或是如同我現在所居住的美國紐約, 原為國際大都會文化所穿透吸收新的元素及活力, 在這兒我觸及一種迷人的新心靈自由選擇。

而何以雅典城邦在政治盲目之下走向宿命性的滅亡, 也就是人們取向於對於個人特徵及情緒的執迷, 而失去對於理想及堅強的傳統德目基石, 使城邦從內部傾圮, 不是由外敵擊潰。這一種災難似為現今社會的一種寫照, 一旦盛世走到了盡頭, 高揚的個人主義, 形成一種無紀律的自我追求, 產生了相互信任的缺乏, 魄力的淪喪, 在古雅典已經回天乏術之際, 蘇格拉底才走入歷史舞台的中央, 橫諸整部人類歷史, 人類似乎只有在認知他們的社會已經無可救藥了, 才會誠摯的搜求與檢視道的問題。

道的理念長久以來一直得到中國人的尊崇, 然在曾何幾時間, 被棄之若敝屣, 至以須在美國或是西方的國家中被推行顯現及討論 在許多的徵象都指出今日的文明正處於一種向下沉淪循環, 而德行之推行並不可能仰賴政治家, 以往的蘇格拉底街頭哲學到今日得以經由數位性的傳遞, 如同我們所說道的顯揚現已進入平民的階段, 這將會讓一些原本絕無可能探索道的人, 得以親身體驗其中珍貴, 並建立明晰的智識, 由修道的途程中, 在看到外界的成就變化時, 自己也須變成自己想要變化的那一種變化本身, 以得到真正的智慧, 朝向實現內心深處較為高尚的夢想志向前進。