Thanking the Masters

Every time we enter or leave the studio at Kung Fu, and at the start and end of every class, we bow to an altar that bears on it the image of a our Grand Master's grandfather, who instructed him.

At first, I found that this was just a quaint ritual, an artifact of the martial art's Chinese heritage. But the more I went to class, the more I began to appreciate the vast knowledge of the Grand Master and the instructors, the more I began to appreciate this simple gesture.

For generations, even for centuries, some of the smartest and most dedicated people in China practiced and taught and thought about kung fu. They generously passed their understanding down to successive generations of students, who in turn became masters. Each generation built upon the last, creating more and more sophisticated, insightful, and efficient techniques and training. Eventually, some of those students came to Canada, and generously taught me.

I owe almost every bit of my kung fu knowledge to the intelligence, hard work, and generosity of ancient masters. When I bow to the altar, I now am bowing with sincere respect to those masters. Training in kung fu has helped me to understand why some cultures worship their ancestors.

But this is not limited to kung fu. Virtually everything I know about mathematics is due to the intelligence, hard work, and generosity of present and ancient mathematicians who passed their knowledge on. All of human knowledge, from technology to art to language to philosophy, is due to ideas built on and passed down through generations.

I ought to bow to the city of Edmonton out my window. I ought to bow to this computer. I ought to bow to my underwear, even, given how much technology and knowledge went into each of these things (in case you're laughing about the underwear, they contain plastic, which means the entire history of chemistry and the entire engineering knowledge of the petrochemical industry is necessary to create them--not to mention modern assembly lines, the cotton, the weaving, the elastic in the waistband, the distribution channels to a store near to me, or the financial industries which funded and organized all of this).

I feel like there's been a resurgence of an informal social Darwinism amongst some elements of the middle class. These are people who feel that, through their own virtues, they have succeeded, and that anyone who hasn't succeeded simply lacks virtues.

This attitude is insightful and, ironically, unintelligent. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see the ways in which you (if you consider yourself successful) depended on the kindness and training of others, be it parents, extended family, friends, books, or internet research. Or, if you consider yourself not successful, I'm sure you can easily imagine how it could have been useful to have better models and training for how to manage the immense challenge of living a good life.

Tim Minchin says all of this in a far more entertaining way in his graduation speech, which is well worth the watch.

I also recommend the TV show, Connections, by James Burke. It's a little dated, but still very insightful, and will change the way you think about technology.

It's a lot to think about when performing a simple bow at the start of a kung fu class.