A misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray.

Not Chairman Xi's heart attack

My recent post of Agamben’s on the lived 2024 moment in the Western World is self evident for people who permit themselves the luxury of somewhat more daring thought than the mass media inculcates and social life lived in polite company permits. Which reminded me immediately of how knowledge operates. https://pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html

Danger + opportunity ≠ crisis, how a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray.

[...] Like most Mandarin words, that for “crisis” (wēijī) consists of two syllables that are written with two separate characters, wēi (危) and jī (機/机).

[...] While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean “crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of “danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify “opportunity.”

The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like “incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.

[...] jī added to huì (“occasion”) creates the Mandarin word for “opportunity” (jīhuì), but by itself jī does not mean “opportunity.”

Chatting today with a fellow thinker who works the coal mines of Substack with me I was excited by the synchronicity and his insight into my ji situation. I had been brooding half the day on writing, publishing and poverty. I realized after our conversation he was quite correct that I am a maser. I now need to be a tightly focused beam of light in my art, in my working with words, in my existenz as Emersonian man containing multitudes.

Senior years I never believed in and to this hour at 67 refuse to think possible. To this hour I apply my forehead to finding work. For 36 years this is normalcy as “real jobs” become odd, temporary, casual jobs because they go out of business and I am not a team sport enthusiast. My luck is I am permitted by Fate to work 3/4 time from October to April in two distinctly different casual labor gigs. This supplements my inflation eaten Social Insecurity payment. I attempt to leverage this luck. 3/4 time for 12 months and 25 an hour.

I hired a person to rewrite my resume for key words. Did not work. For 2 months that bait wasn’t hit. I was astonished. 36 years of experience as a Boulevardier, 46 as a Flaneur, 12 years of extremely unfocused college with dropping in and out because of money needs, 20 years in sales by phone with cold call, Expert Witness recruiter for Federal Breast Implant Litigation, Cafe Philosopher—no no, polite rejections stating we hire 8 round pegs for one squared off hole made for fitting 8 round pegs. We do not seek to hire one person as 8 round pegs. Recent college graduates only. Enjoy the old folks home dude. We’ll keep your resume on file and if we are desperate (we never are) might give ya a jingle.

I told this tale of woe to a friend and they rewrote my resume. They reformatted it. Changed key words. Much more active verbs for my sales roles. Scalps collected, campaigns waged, booty, tribute paying customers, the quota of cities sacked, details for the hiring team to discuss. I used Homer. No job yet.

I have my CBEST score so maybe substitute paraeducator. Of course I have my doubts of this being viable. Schools in California are Covid crazy. I tried to get a gig as substitute for a placement agency -not being vaccinated I would have to test weekly and submit results online. Curious the school district does not require this of the staff. Only the Agency.

A book may be written. Two Fisted Tales of a Gamblin’ Man

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