#chinese metaphysics

[joeyyap]

Exploring the Essence of Change, Revolution, and Evolution

Yi Jing, also known as the "Book of Changes," is a fascinating ancient Chinese oracle and wisdom system that offers profound insights into the dynamics of change, revolution, and evolution.

It's like having a cosmic playbook for life's twists and turns. Through a system of symbols, hexagrams, and lines, Yi Jing helps us understand the ebb and flow of situations, guiding us on how to respond wisely.

So, whether you're facing a curveball or plotting your next move, Yi Jing, this centuries-old guide (or language) offers us insider info on the Dao and it's messages to us.

[moderatelyquicksilversposts]

(via The Many Ways of Reading the I Ching)

[makhonkit]

From Desk-Bound To Des-Tiny : A Metaphysical Awakening

In this episode of In The Spotlight, I'm very delighted to introduce to you my good friend  @KevinChanBazi . He does Chinese Metaphysics and on YouTube and other social media platforms, he introduces the fundamentals and mechanisms of action of Chinese Metaphysics in both English and Cantonese which are especially helpful for many people, especially English speaking individuals, to understand and learn more about Chinese Metaphysics.

I would also like to congratulate Kevin for reaching 10,000 Subscribers on YouTube, an important milestone to helping even more people. I met Kevin in a very unexpected way. One day, I got invited to a fashion show as a VIP Content Creator / Influencer. I'm someone who doesn't know much about fashion but I tried my best to look the part by wearing the ONLY fashionable outfit I had in my wardrobe, my Wedding Tuxedo.

Not far from where I was standing, I was looking at an equally blur, not very friendly, and confused face of another person, standing by a light pole, who probably understands just as much fashion as me. I approached him and there were some awkward moments (Ray Mak is weird and always make people uncomfortable) but we quickly realize we were on the same boat and we went for dinner and beer with a few other friends, same boat minions, instead of staying for the entire fashion show.

In this episode of In The Spotlight, we talked about how Kevin started his early morning Livestreams and how he pivoted from writing blogs into Livestreaming and making videos. He shared about his setup and how important is streamlining his livestream processes. Here you'll be learning more about livestream processes, starting a channel, and how to have the least amount of resistance towards creating contents.

On the side, Kevin love visiting different restaurants and bars to wine and dine. He has a steadily growing Instagram page called EatinGods, which is also available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@eatingods . People would stumble upon good restaurants on his page and save them for future. After all, there are so many amazing restaurants in Malaysia, and other countries, that are yet to be discovered.

PS : Kevin is also the catalyst, push, idea and brains behind In The Spotlight. Like many introverts that look like extroverts, I'm someone who have a lot of fear talking to the camera but I'm very blessed to have many good friends who have much more to offer to the society than me, which I've never taken the time to realize, until I met Kevin.

Be sure to like, comment, and most importantly share if you find this podcast useful. Thank you very much and advance and Enjoy the Show! Feel free to make use of these timestamps to go to the topics that you're most interested in.

00:00 Intro 00:45 Ray Mak And Kevin Chan's First Meeting Picture 01:06 Kevin Chan As The Catalyst For In The Spotlight 02:28 Pivoting From Writing To Live-Streaming 04:08 Chinese Metaphysics As A Niche 05:52 How Do You Make Your Content Interesting? 07:48 How Did You Know That Chinese Metaphysics Would Be Something You're Passionate With? 12:00 Different Types Of Contents 13:10 Ray Mak As A Catalyst To Video Creation - YouTube 14:40 Two Main Categories Of Contents - BaZi and Feng Shui 16:27 Challenges And Roadblocks 20:43 Difference Between YouTube and Facebook 23:22 Curating Presentation Slides 25:24 Will You Run Out Of Topics? 26:34 Any Burnout? Deliberate VS Spontaneous 30:32 Importance Of Streamlining Processes 32:01 Words Of Wisdom

About In The Spotlight

I have been a content creator for almost two decades now as I've had the privilege to have started when all these platforms started. Over the years, I've made many great friends and have also enjoyed the many blessings from the Internet.

In The Spotlight is a Platform where my amazing content creators friends share their precious experiences so we can all learn together as well. I really hope you like it too.

Last but not least, special thanks to my good friend  @KevinChanBazi  ( http://www.youtube.com/kevinchanbazi ) for being the catalyst, push, idea and brains behind In The Spotlight.

This podcast was recorded with the amazing new BOYALINK - All-In-One Design Wireless Microphone System from  @BOYA-mic . They are so sleek and easy to use!

Special Discount Link to my Boya Link (Enjoy!) : https://shope.ee/8zgRUMM75J

#inthespotlight #creator #contentcreator

Follow  @KevinChanBazi   YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/kevinchanbazi YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@eatingods TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@kevinchanbazi Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/kevinchanbazi Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/eatingods Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/kevinchanbazi Twitter : https://twitter.com/kevinchanbazi

Talk to me : 🎵 Instagram ▸ http://instagram.com/makhonkit 🎵 Facebook ▸ http://facebook.com/raymakpiano 🎵 Twitter ▸ http://twitter.com/makhonkit

[yebreed]

Subtle Phenomena In Inner Alchemy: Signs Of Achievement And Temptations

In Taoism, as in Tantra, there are so-called “signs of achievement” indicating the progress of the adept. Along with them, spectacular subtle phenomena and temptations coexist with the cultivation. These accompanying mystical experiences are described in all Taoist currents. The article below by Stephen Eskildsen gives their interpretation in the one of the major schools, Quanzhen (全真, Way Of…

[meldedmind]

welcome to the year of the wood dragon!

it is officially the new year, and according to the lunisolar chinese calendar, it is a year of abundance, creativity, and transformation. a great time for unlocking potential and succeeding in goals, this year will especially bring prosperity in wealth or financial success

here are five stones that perfectly reflect the strengths of the year and can help amplify your success!

dragon’s blood jasper promotes courage and willpower, inspires love and compassion, and brings money and vitality

rutilated quartz encourages determination and personal growth, and brings hope, peace, and protection from negativity

tree agate encourages self-expression and pure happiness, and helps find comfort and joy in the small things in life

aragonite increases connection with Earth, teaches flexibility and patience, and encourages change and self-betterment

labradorite promotes new beginnings, transforms habits or perspectives, and amplifies manifestation

if you'd like a premade set of these tumbes for the new year, click the link below!

shop

[anglerflsh]

How do you learn about all these philosophers in the first place? Feels like you've read all the wiki pages for every philosopher ever lmao.

( Also I've noticed a lack of ramblings about post 1900 philosophy. I wonder why hmmm)

I take philosphy in school lol. [In italy it's a mandatory subject in highschool just like literature and- any subject, actually. We have 12 and the only ones we can exchange depend of the type of highschool you choose and it's between greek and latin or physics and latin or coding and physics or latin and a third language.]

The lack of post-1900s philosphers is because one my favourite part of philosphy is methaphysics and they stopped doing that and two. I'm at Darwin and Nietzche in the curriculum, so, I'll know more about those as I finish highschool

[troutfur]

Jace, you must read the madness that is TBC

One day! One day! Top of my reading list when I can again dedicate time to WC. RN I am reading lots of archaeological research papers, reports, and books and in between my pleasure reads have all been about daoist esoterica.

[flaminghotcptsd]

“Metaphysical” Approach to Healing Chronic Pain etc?

Absolutely possible! Modern western “real doctors” with degrees working in hospitals have used the word “miraculous” to describe the remission of my Chron’s Disease.

What they call “impossible” becomes “miraculous” when it proves possible.

Others in online support groups call me every thing but a decent human for wanting to be better too. It’s obviously true that some people really do cling to their pain as much as it’s “wrong” to just say the obvious.

But I did not experience this “miraculous” level of healing until I started ignoring them, the doctors and the support groups, and sought other paths. Traditional Chinese Medicine has helped a lot and part of its help is that it offers simple but impactful shifts like eating according to your Chi.

The Chinese doctors are stunned at my progress too but not necessarily at the results of my healing; what they are stunned by is that I am actually willing to do the work. I’ve been told by multiple Chinese doctors across the WORLD now (I’ve moved a lot) that “white people never keep the diet, especially Americans”.

13 years ago it was otherwise predicted by “the real doctors” that I would have a colostomy bag to be alive by now but now I’m healthier than I’ve been since then and I haven’t had to have a colostomy afterall, as if I could ever afford it. When you’re this poor you just die. Doctors aren’t doing whatever to save everyone like on TV. Where those who have pensions and SSI get new tubes and bags, impoverished millennials with no families just die.

And in “the IBD community” I’m called ableist for not wanting a colostomy and for acknowledging that they are not accessible for all classes anyway. And for being happy with my self healing and believing that surely it’s possible for others like me? That’s hate speech in these online IBD support groups. Who/what are they really supporting? Seems like the disease itself more than those suffering with it.

You have to want it, you have to try and follow what feels right vs what the “official authority” deems should be correct, what is possible. And you have to learn to ignore others trying to tear you down along the whole way.

It’s not wrong to want to feel better. But honestly that was the common denominator I felt from all the “real people” who get to decide what’s possible for chronic illness, as opposed to “fake” like myself, like Chinese doctors etc.

The more I ignored the “real” people… from doctors to support group leaders alike, whose official authoritative advice was essentially just try to be more dignified and good humored as I suffer to the end (since I have never been in a position to afford the expense of GI surgery) and find ways to joke it off in the meantime …the more I have actually “miraculously” healed.

If you have IBD too and can relate to this post, to me and my desires to heal despite being told “to face reality” and “you’re ableist against yourself”, then you may (or not) be surprised at who is widely beloved and borderline famous among the IBD community who has been so discouraging toward healing, like on a one-to-one level resulting in online harassment and bullying at his behest. But when you build not just an identity and social media presence, but a brand and business on chronic illness (and a weird beard), it’s not that great for business to encourage people to truly heal on their own terms instead of listening to you and funding your new book, podcast, and international speaking tour.

This is the astro blog post that I am relating to:

[michellesspiritualblog]

"East Meets West: Tracing the Fascinating History of Western and Chinese Astrology"

Thank you for reading YOU ARE APPRECIATED Michelle Skordas

Introducing the Fascinating World of Astrology Are you curious about the mysterious world of astrology? Join us as we embark on an enchanting journey through the celestial realm. In this captivating series, we delve into the ancient practice of studying the stars and their influence on our lives. Unveil the secrets of your zodiac sign and discover how the position of the planets at the time of…

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Derin I finished book one in two days and am mad I have to wait until sometime tomorrow to start book 2

Observations so far:

1. It reminds me a bit of red dwarf if red dwarf was a lot darker and actually had something to say (note: I love red dwarf, it's how my husband and I met but I don't think the OG series had much to say besides jokes)

2. Because I follow you I have recognised your opinions about tech which I feel is neat

3. Similarly the fact that you are Australian is evident I which I also think is neat. Not sure if I would pick up on either if I didn't already know

4. I can't tell if your followers aren't normally into sci-fi and that's why they keep yelling "what the fuck" or if my reading of gay Chinese romance/horror and a really weird and metaphysical and extremely meta Korean webnovel broke my "what the fuck" meter.

5. I have had Aspen Grieves and THEIR crew for two days and if anything bad happens to them in a final way I will cry very ugly tears

6. I love love love how you write! It's so very immersive that it's easy to forget that these aren't real people from the future. This is fiction! And I love them a lot

Anyway thank you

I've seen very little Red Dwarf but "red Dwarf with something to say" is such a funny description I love it.

Yeah I'm not sure why people get so weirded out by my stories either, they're pretty middle-of-the-road scifi. I'm glad you enjoyed the book!

[joeyyap]

Every Part of a BaZi Chart - Explained

[sagelasters]

the void state through the context of asian philosophy 

How often does one hear about the void state? Many people probably think it doesn’t exist because the idea of instant ‘manifestation’ is too good to be true. The fundamental realm of our world taught us that suffering is inevitable, and success can only be achieved through physical hard work. Sometimes, the idea of exquisite comfort and abundance of wealth hangs above people’s heads like a bait, oftentimes those that climb the ladders, falls off and never to return again. If it was fake, there wouldn’t be so many similarities in philosophy all across the world, some stretches back to ancient civilizations. The void state has many names/terms depending on each culture interpretation, but it is always referred to the state of stillness.  I used to be skeptical of anything metaphysical related, but if you really want to change your life, I’d advise you to drop all of those doubts just for several minutes. Remember your roots, just remember. 

In Taoism, there is a concept called ‘wuji’ (無極) which directly translated to ‘without limit’ or ‘without roof’. Wuji is represented by a blank circle and described as the state of unmanifest, a stillness, infinite ‘no-thing’, and a primordial universe. Many Taoist scholars described ‘wuji’ as a ‘good night sleep’ where all negative and positive emotions cease to exist, many believers of Taoism stated that the world was once in the ‘wuji’ state. Since it is boundless and an infinite universe,  ‘wuji’ must exist in order for movement and manifestation to arise. This state is taught in many forms of Chinese martial art, oftentimes requires deep concentration to fully ‘enter’ (I don’t like this word because ‘wuji’ isn’t a magical place, it literally exists within you, it needs you to exist. You are the movement and manifestation). Overall, martial artists used this to relax mentally and physically, it’s actually a meditative state. In ‘wuji’, you have the potential to ‘move’ and become ‘something', as it is a pre-existential state. 

Another state of stillness can be seen in Buddhism is the Śūnyatā or suññatā (voidness, vacuity or emptiness) Buddhist philosophers even refers to is ‘The Void’ where the essence of the soul is empty, it is ‘the synonym of that which has no cause, that which is beyond thought or conception, that which is not produced, that which is not born, that which is without measure.’ ‘Sunyata’ is a composition of ultimate reality and the release of attachment. The Buddha found true enlightenment when he realized ‘emptiness’. He freed himself from all of the suffering and dissatisfaction of the Earthly world. In ‘sunyata’, every entity is interconnected with a blankness, the concept explains that the universe's ever-changing and empty nature allows for the creation and destruction of all things. To reach the state of ‘sunyata’ or the great void, one must have great concentration and tread gently, avoiding forcing their way in. 

That was a lot of researching and summarizing but I love to share my knowledges with you. As you can see, the void state is not anything new. In-fact the concept is much older than we think! I hope this post showed you new insights and please stop doubting the void's existence. It lives within you, it is literally a part of you.

[howtofightwrite]

I'm writing a scene where a cultivater (chinese martial artists who fights ghosts) falls in a forest and I'm trying to figure out how someone who fights on rough terrain would train to fall. I tried looking at martial art/parkour/stunt man tutorials, but I feel like a lot of the basic techniques (rolling, and slapping the ground to distribute weight) wouldn't work well on uneven ground. I also tried looking at hiking advice but they just say to fall on your pack. Any insight?

Chinese cultivators don’t fall, they choose to reacquaint themselves with the ground.

That sounds like a joke, but the best way to understand Chinese cultivators and Chinese fantasy media is to realize that martial arts are the gateway drug to magic. And that will get you into a lot of trouble if you follow that all the way into Martial Arts Give You Superpowers, which is both the outgrowth of the western understanding of Chinese culture and a trope rife with orientalism. Cultivation seems simple on the surface when you’re watching Chinese media, but it’s more than martial arts, it’s more than religion, it’s more than mythology, (though it is all of those too) it’s a genuine transition into metaphysics that reorients how we understand and interact with the world around us. The concepts we see in cultivation come from real martial arts philosophy that you find in Tai Chi, Shaolin, and most other Chinese martial arts. They come from real religions including Daoism, Buddhism, a healthy dose of Confucianism, general mythology and mysticism from a wide range of subcultures, and, to an extent, Animism. If you aren’t doing your reading with the Eight Immortals, Journey to the West, The Legend of the White Snake, and others then you should dig in. I also really suggest watching the live action C-Dramas whether they’re true Wuxia or more Xianxia idol dramas (and in this case the idol dramas are better because the action is slower) so you can acquaint yourself with the stylized martial arts portrayals, a wide variety of choreography, character archetypes essential to motif based storytelling, and the most important aspect of all—wire work.

Understanding and conceptualizing stunt action done on wires is essential when you’re trying to visualize and create action scenes in any East Asian genre. Your first instinct might be to dismiss the stylized movement as unrealistic (it is) but remember that it’s also genre essential. Hong Kong action cinema has a very specific feel to it that’s very different from the way Western cinema structures and films their fight scenes. Even when you’re writing, you’ll want to find ways to imitate it through your visual imagery on the page.

Probably the best way to contextualize cultivators is that they’re wizards who do martial arts. They’ve learned to transcend the limitations in our understanding of reality through knowledge and study to perform superhuman feats. How superhuman? Well, it gets wild. They can be anywhere from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Who Rules the World fly through the trees levels to Shang Tsung’s “I’m going to slam my hell reality into your normal reality because commuting to work is too much of an inconvenience.”

Which is to say, they don’t always fight ghosts. Sometimes they fight other martial artists, sometimes they fight other cultivators, sometimes they fight demons, sometimes they fight gods, and sometimes they fight incredibly overpowered monkeys. They’re often monks living in seclusion on a mountaintop, but not always. Cultivation is more of a state of mind. Anyone can do it if they learn how to absorb spiritual energy from the world around them through meditation and breathing exercises. Gods cultivate. Humans cultivate. Animals cultivate. Remember, the demons and the ghosts cultivate too. Sometimes, your master gets reincarnated as a demon. Sometimes, you do. The amount of wacky spellcasting you can do is dependent on how much energy you’ve cultivated, which is dependent on how old you are and how good at cultivation you are. Using the power means you need to cultivate more energy, the greater the spell or difficult the battle then the more energy is lost.

This is important to the question of: how does a cultivator fall?

Metaphorically? Existentially? Physically?

When we’re talking physically, wire work becomes very important. Think of your cultivator as being on wires. If they have the knowledge and understanding to do it, they can slow their own fall through the air to land harmlessly on the ground or twist over like a cat and launch themselves back off the ground to fly at their opponent in a counter attack. If they have the knowledge and understanding, they can teleport. If they lack the knowledge and understanding or want to trick their opponent, they can hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. If they’re relying on basics, they can also smack the ground to counter and spread out the impact then use the momentum from that fall to roll back onto their feet. They’ll do it no matter what terrain they’re on because it’s a basic technique that’s trained into their foundation to the point it’s a reflexive action. Any force distributed away from, and reducing impact on, important body parts like your spine is better than nothing. It’s better to sacrifice your arm than be paralyzed. At its heart, that’s the point of the technique. If you’re able to walk away with a functioning spine, it’s done its job. Your shoulder hurts? That’s normal. Your arm is sprained or broken? Sucks, but that’s better than the alternative that is paralysis and death. For reference, learning to fall was the first lesson my Wushu instructor ever taught me. It is that basic.

A lot of the time when portraying cultivators in media, the goal is to show them as being beyond the limitations of standard martial artists. How vast the gap is between the cultivator and the average human is dependent on both the setting and the cultivator. So, the average martial artist who possesses superhuman talents but hasn’t dedicated themselves to a life of cultivation and cultivators who are new to the path are going to be on the rung below and more likely to be knocked on their ass. Cultivators in the mid-range are more likely to have crafted or trained in solutions to being knocked on their ass which put them in a less vulnerable position while recovering and empowered/enhanced their martial arts. Cultivators in the top tier are usually straight up masters at spellcasting, if they deign to fight at all. Gravity need not apply. Rember, the time it takes you to hit the ground and roll to your feet is time your opponent has to launch a counter attack or move to a better position. Also, it means you’ve taken your eyes off your opponent. This is bad enough against a normal human opponent. Against another mostly immortal or ancient magic user this risks a terrible outcome.

Cunning and strategy are both as important as skill. Wisdom, knowledge, and hard work outweigh talent and raw potential. You’ll have to decide how esoteric you want to be and what limits you want to set. I really urge you to do this because the danger of power creep is real and especially prominent here. A character’s growth in power is often linked to their growth in character or their arc, as they gain a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them their skill increases. The self-discovery/self-reflection/self-interrogation/intense suffering to reach enlightenment portion is just as important and intrinsic to the martial arts portion of Martial Arts Give You Superpowers. It’s easy to focus on the Superpowers or the Martial Arts parts of the equation and miss the genre necessity of character growth. This growth often happens through heaps of steadily increasing trauma. Or, failing to undergo that by being too powerful and thus unable to progress is the joke like it is in Qi Refining for 3000 Years. (Go to hell, Bai Qiuran, you hilariously overpowered monstrosity.)

The irony is that the trajectory in character growth is the same trajectory the average student experiences when practicing martial arts. The only difference is that the power arc is inflated. This includes overcoming ingrained truths that you believe about yourself, about your own abilities, what you believe yourself to be capable of (both good and bad,) about your biases toward yourself and other people, your biases about reality in general, your understanding of good and evil, the potential upending of right and wrong, and facing the greater complexity found in the world at large. The stripping away of these illusions, coming to terms with uncomfortable realizations in a more complicated world, and the gaining of new understanding and confidence are vital to that growth.

Skill isn’t just represented in the power creep, it’s also found in a character’s sophistication and complexity in their approach to combat and life in general. Their awareness both of themselves and of other people, their ability to read intentions, their predictive abilities, their complexity in initiating their own strategy and tactics while also recognizing and countering the plans of others. It’s their insight into human nature and their cunning. It’s not enough to be powerful. The world is full of powerful people and not so powerful people who have the capacity to be just as dangerous. This isn’t Goku and Freeza slamming into each other while the planet explodes in nine minutes. You also need to be smart. It’s also not about being a better person. It’s about being a self-aware person. A person who is self-actualized. Monkey’s growth is in his awareness of the world around him through his experiences and in approaching problems differently rather than becoming less of a little shit. If you grow up in the West, one of the issues you’re going to face is thinking of these hurdles as materialistic rather than emotional or intellectual.

A lot of Western media misinterprets the concepts of “giving up” as physical sacrifice. One of the popular examples is physically sacrificing the person we love. In order to have enlightenment, we must be separated from them. We can’t physically be with them anymore. Whereas under a Buddhist structure, what we are actually sacrificing is our own ignorance, our own preconceptions, and beliefs that keep the world comfortable. Under this structure, we’re sacrificing our preconceived notions of who our loved one is. The person that we invented when we first met and we must force ourselves to come to terms with who they really are. The outcome of this isn’t necessarily going to be bad, but it’s still painful. The person we think we love could be perfectly wonderful. However, they’re not who we imagined. If we choose to hold onto the illusion we created, to ignore the realization that the illusion is the person that we love, we’ll only end up causing ourselves and our loved one more pain. We must fall in love with them all over again. Coming to terms with that is painful. All pain comes from ignorance. In sacrificing, letting go of, or overcoming our ignorance, we grow.

These are the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual challenges necessary for a cultivator because they allow the cultivator to level up. Yes, level up. Whether this is coming from the influx of gaming culture into media at large or because the concept synergizes with the Buddhist goal of progressing through the Six Realms toward nirvana, leveling up is how a cultivator’s increasing power is often depicted. Of course, once we reach the next level we can’t go back except by falling or failing and are no longer the person we once were. This then gets mixed in with Daoist principles of finding divine understanding by living in harmony with the universe. The more understanding we gain of the world, the more energy we can absorb as a result, but our original goals may be lost or changed in the process. If a character begins their journey on the path of revenge, their newfound contextualization of the situation that caused them immense pain may force them to give that revenge up or find they don’t want revenge anymore.

Failure is also an option and often a common part of the story. These stories usually follow characters through multiple lives and rebirths over hundreds and even thousands of years, especially if they’re also gods. This is the existential fall. The fall to the Dark Side. All our heroes are going to go through it at least once. This is also why a lot of Chinese media ends in tragedy with hope for the next round.

-Michi

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[yebreed]

Taoist Mountains: Place of Spiritual Deed

The Taoist mountains represent the cardinal points of the mysterial cosmology, structuring the sacred space. The mountain idyll provides the perfect setting for alchemical and ritual deed. It is a space of seclusion, where the external worldly activity ceases, giving way to the internal. And the sacred in the Chinese imagery is inextricably linked with the aesthetic.

[centrally-unplanned]

Time for a pet peeve take response - let me capture our target below:

[Unpopular Fantasy Opinion Take:] The fantasy genre by-and-large took the wrong takeaway from Tolkien, and has been generally spiraling since as a result. They took his surface-level aesthetics and fantastical elements, and left his engagement with real, historical texts, his philology & his moral seriosity. In a different timeline, subsequent authors would have adopted Tolkien's erudite love of language and mythology and applied it to other cultures & mythologies - not just superficially, but by engaging with the great Chinese novels or the Shahnameh like he did with Beowulf. Even when you *do* see more recent novels "inspired by" other cultures, they are very blatantly just taking the (degraded distillate of the) Western, Tolkien-esque tradition and coating it in a thin veneer of Chinese or Mesoamerican lore.

This is not the first time I have seen this specific take, and it is part of a "fallen literature" genre that is always confusing supply & demand, with a hefty bout of selection bias for good measure.

To get the obvious out of the way, the "lessons" people took from Tolkien are entirely what audiences want to read, and were never going to be any other way. Most people don't wanna read hard, heavy books! Even if they want that sometimes, for every one Gravity's Rainbow they are gonna read a dozen Gone Girl's as a palette-cleansing snack, which means by-the-numbers the latter will dominate. Fantasy did not invent the genre of adventure stories and swashbuckling heroes and hot maidens to woo and mystical mumbo-jumbo; people stapling tried-and-true genre tropes onto elves and orcs once they took off was a given. The "shallow" part was the only part that could have changed; a world where the median fantasy novel is dealing with theological issues could never have been.

And to top this all off, no disrespect to Tolkien at all, but like...he isn't that deep? The "moral seriousness" of the Lord of the Rings is very simple - characters are often cartoonishly evil or blatantly good, the conflicts they face are often black and white, and in particular the moral dilemmas faced by characters boil down to tests of courage more than half the time. What Tolkien does have is his own unique interests? Like in Middle Earth the "act of creation", from art to life, is itself a moral undertaking with metaphysical implications. This is super cool - but it is also again very simple, it is barely even discussed in the novels and his ideas can be summarized in a paragraph. This is all good btw! The novels would not benefit from more complicated morality. But modern books are just as complex, and often more so.

Actually just a little aside here - a lot of people do this thing with Tolkien where they mention his letters and drafts like that is canonical story text? Yeah he wrote like an essay about the theological implications of the various orc origin stories, but he didn't publish that, it is nowhere in the Lord of the Rings and is barely in the Silmarillion. Other authors have notes like those; you just don't read them.

And the "other cultures" stuff is particularly egregious - I'm sorry, are we just not reading many modern stories? You think Spinning Silver isn't pulling great threads from Slavic folklore? You think the Chinese Gays in Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed aren't dropping refs to Daoism and the four classics in between their will-they-won't-they necromancy shenanigans? In response this author would, of course, pivot from their bailey of "no one references other traditions" to the motte of "and if they do it is shallow" with no definition of what qualifies as such, nor again any admittance that audiences care way more about getting the gays than the deep cut cultural refs. The fact that the median person in the west prefers their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns in a default Tolkien-esque setting because the point is to have a comfortable backdrop for ease of play of a combat dice game will just not factor into their analysis.

The elephant in the room for all of this is that foundational texts differ, structurally, from modern texts, because they were made in different environments. The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't sell well today! The prose is wooden, the characters are flat, it throws random lore it never explains at you, Tom Bombadil is just there as a walking momentum-destroying plot hole, etc. People read it because it was a first in a world that didn't have books committing to this level of world-building & detail in a fantasy environment. And as a new genre, things like his crazy level of language building are appealing, it's all so new and different, something cool to dig into.

But imagine picking up your 185th elves-and-orcs sword & sorcery book in 1998 and reading "ah yes Quenya is just one of two alphabets for the Elven tongue and it is inspired by Finnish-Germanic and I write entire poems in it even though I never finished a cohesive dictionary or grammar system but I do have 15 pages of pronunciation notes"?? You would throw at it at a fucking wall, absolutely insufferable. It was cool the first time, and that is why you learn Elvish, just like you learn Klingon. That was never gonna keep as a zeitgeist - instead just popping up here or there as this or that series takes off.

You have to accept that audiences are in the driver's seat on this one - they have infinite stories to choose from, they are absolutely not being dragged along by willful writers. Which means genres will evolve and change over time - and that is fine.

[yersina]

a linguist* plays chants of sennaar (pt 1)

*i studied linguistics for four years and concurrently did three years of sociolinguistics research, but i'm not currently employed in a linguistics-related field.

[pt 2] [pt 3] [pt 4] [pt 5]

thought i'd have some fun breaking down the languages in cos and stretch my rarely used linguistics muscles in the process! disclaimer: can't promise that i'll have any insights that a layperson wouldn't have, this is kinda just me thinking through the grammar of the language out loud haha.

this post covers the first language and will contain spoilers! it also assumes that you know what each of the symbols means already.

so the three glyphs from the devotee's language that you get introduced to right off the bat already tells me a lot: it's a pictographic logography (real life example: chinese characters), which is probably a good place to start for people who are new to language deciphering (also, none of these languages are spoken so an alphabet would be pointless lol). a logography is a writing system that represents whole words/concepts with a single character, as opposed to representing the sounds that the words make (like alphabets or syllabaries). i haven't completely finished the game yet (most of the way through the fourth language), but i'm p sure 1) all of the languages are logographies and 2) the devotee's language is the most true-to-life with its pictograms.

with these three words we can also begin to establish a pattern--verbs most likely have a line on the bottom, which holds true for the rest of the characters. i think the only exception to this rule is the character for "greeting", which is also used as the verb "salute" later in the game (an interesting choice (considering etymologies for greetings in irl languages), but it makes sense when your language is only 40 words lol). other patterns include the curved line for tools, the semi-open box for structures/locations, and the half-circle with the line for things relating to sight (which amusingly is also the overall game symbol for examining something). (not gonna include things like "man" and "music" and "plant" in this list cause they're defined in game.) i do think it's kind of fun that they introduced "i/me" and "you" before they introduced "man"—it validates that you'll find patterns haha.

(while writing the prev paragraph, it finally hit me that the symbol for "key" is open-tool. isn't that cool!)

i did notice at one point in the game that there was a devotee word that was cut off in one of the stone carvings that looked like it might have been the equivalent for "fortress"--it was the room radical with the two opposing arrows from the word for "warrior". although it's not validated by the game's automatic translation function, it does seem to be evidence that the language elements are fairly flexible and recombinable!

this language is SVO (subject verb object), like english, which again is a choice that makes sense in terms of easing people in. it uses reduplication with nouns to indicate plurality, which as far as i can tell is unique amongst the languages in this game. there's no tense markers, which is common to all the languages in this game (again, as far as i can tell without having encountered the last language yet). given how simple the languages in the game need to be, i'm not surprised that there aren't really auxiliary verbs or indications of infinitives either.

questions that still remain unanswered: - "dead/death", "seek", and "find" all have dots that don't show up in the other characters. not sure why that's the case. could be a representation of something metaphysical? - the character for "go/pass" has a "room" radical on the right side and something else on the left side. wonder if that was intentional