Greeting From the Sin City Taoist

Hello to everyone on Steemit. My name is Marc aka the Sin City Taoist. I became aware of Steemit back in August through a Facebook post. So far I have to say I am impressed with its potential and definitely want to be a part of it. 

  
Now to tell a little about myself. I am from Las Vegas, hence the Sin City Taoist moniker, and in addition to being a libertarian I am a voracious autodidact. This is the point that I am compelled to praise the technological miracle that is the Internet. For any seeker of knowledge it is a Godsend. Of course you have to learn to navigate it. A sea of knowledge can be every bit as overwhelming and dangerous as a sea of water. This is the reason I have wanted to get into blogging. I've done a few articles here and there over the years but nothing steady. Of course this has a lot to do with the fact that I am horrible at staying organized and keeping steady routines. That is a long story though and better told at a later time. Suffice it to say that I know that there a lot of people who are like me and want to improve themselves using every resource at their disposal. So as I get my Indiana Jones on as I look for that most sacred of treasures that is knowledge I wish to help guide people on their personal crusade. By the way I reference Indiana Jones because while I am writing this I am listening to the soundtrack from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love to listen to soundtracks while I write.   

My academic interests are pretty varied. They include but are certainly not limited to: nutrition, herbalism, fitness, martial arts and their history, meditation, religion, history, economics, politics, information technology, science fiction and fantasy as well as classical literature. So I'll be writing on a pretty broad set of topics.   

One topic in particular I will be spending a lot of time on is the idea of Scholar Warrior. In my studies of Taoism, I am a Taoist by the way that's not just a cool sounding nom de plume, I came across the idea of the Scholar Warrior in a book of the same name by Deng Ming-Dao. The book explains this concept in the first paragraph of the first chapter.

“Skill is the essence of the Scholar Warrior. Such a person strives to develop  a wide variety of talents to a degree greater than even a specialist in a particular field. Poet and boxer. Doctor and swordsman. Musician and knight. The Scholar Warrior uses each part of his or her overall ability to keep the whole in balance, and to attain the equilibrium for following the Tao, Uncertainty of the future inspires no fear: whatever happens, the Scholar Warrior has the confidence to face it.” 

Just a little further into the chapter he gives Confucius' definition of the ideal scholar.

 “At the heart of his Analects, he utilized the word shi, his designation for a scholar, which meant “warrior”. A shi was a fighter of high rank – he went to battle in a war-chariot rather than on foot. Confucius' use of the word implied a person who would uphold the Tao (he used the word Tao to mean divine law) as valiantly as a warrior would. The term was eventually applied to all cultured people. Soon, the entire Zhou court advocated the ideal of the Six Arts. In the book of Zhou rites, it is recorded that the imperial minister made this report to the emperor. He said that he was teaching the prince six different arts: rites, music, archery, horsemanship, literature (including reading, calligraphy, and divination), and mathematics. This establishes one of the earliest codifications of the scholar warrior combined”

Culture is important and if libertarians, specifically anarcho-capitalists or anarchists, want to attract people to our cause we have to embody a high ideal of that culture. It's not enough to just write articles or contribute only academic arguments. We have to be able to represent our ideals and virtues in everything we do. The Internet is undoubtedly a powerful tool as the alt media clearly demonstrated during the last Presidential election. It brings opportunities for doing things I could only have dreamed about as a child and they are only going to get better. And for that reason anyone who writes on important ideas must become better as well. 

I look forward to sharing content and getting feedback with anyone who wants to follow me.
 

The Sin City Taoist

Photo via VisualHunt