Saturday, September 15, 2018

Ptahhotep Maxim 21 and 22

Two maxims for the price of one.

That is to say "free."

Boy, we sure are learning now. The same phrasing is repeated, the same definitions of groupings drilled like nobody's business. The same material handled repeatedly, first copied character for character, and that takes a good deal of cognition along the way, our minds are working with each character, active engagement right there. Then arranged in Photoshop as it is in the book except in the reverse direction so we're seeing it frontward and backward. Then the whole thing again with their sounds, then the whole thing again for their groupings, then the whole thing again for their English translations, then the whole thing again at the granular level for each word, for each phrase and grouping, then again for the notes that clarify a few of the more difficult things that don't make sense without them, and tell us what experts think of the phrases. Nobody does this. Rather, they read the book, zip, in both eyeballs, processed then evaporated out the back of their heads. But our method is drilled into our thick skulls like a jackhammer and embedded there. Forever.  And that's why we'll get an A on the imaginary test and everyone else gets C and D and they miss more than they get. We get it all and bend the curve on them, having fun with the material as we go.

We can go to a museum and gaze upon 4,000 year old objects with writing all over the place and go, "I know what that says." We'll read it better, more accurately, than the museum curators do.

We're over the hump with the maxims and moving along steadily. There are 36 maxims with 7 conclusions. They're mostly short like this; about 10 lines each and every line fairly short. It's all more the same phrasing, more of the same drilling. More of the same stuff that we already know.

Maxim 21 is about close friends.

Content your intimates with what has come to you,
for it has come to one whom the god blesses.
As for him who fails to content his intimates,
one says, "He is a stingy ka."
What might happen cannot be known:
he should think of tomorrow.
The proper ka is the ka that one can become content by.
When occasions of blessings happen,
intimates are the ones who say, "Welcome!"
Contentment is not fetched to harbor,
but intimates are fetched when there is ruin.

Maxim 22 is about gossip.

You should not repeat gossip
about a speech you have not heard:
it is the mark of belly-heat.
Repeat a speech that is seen, not heard,
when the one it belongs to is entirely out of the discussion.
Look, your interlocutor knows all too well,
for robbery is decreed when it is done.
The instigator will customarily do it out of hate:
look, it is a nightmare that ought to be covered over.