The Lengend of Pang Tong: Understanding Ourselves Through Literature

in #philosophy7 years ago

Well I sort of disappeared from Steem for a minute. No real reason, just was busy the last week and a half or so and haven't been in the post writing mood. I actually thought about the idea for this blog a week ago and sort of let it ripen, and very fortuitiously the universe seems to have led me back to in a not so subtle way which I'll get to at the end.

For those who aren't familar, Pang Tong was one of Liu Bei's chief strategists in the early part of the Three Kingdoms period of China. While he was a historical figure, much of what we know about him comes from the novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is considered to be the Chinese equivalent of Homer's The Odyessy, a great work of historical fiction that is one of the true early literary classics. Like a lot of westerners my first expereince of the story was through playing the Dynasty Warriors video games. In it you assume the role of various generals from the Three Kingdoms period in a campaign to unite China after the fall of the Han dynasty.

Pang Tong was a character I was immediately drawn to. He has a unique and interesting moveset that requires finesse and strategy to use properly. He uses a staff which is also my weapon of choice (although I learned long staff as opposed to the short staff he uses). He's also often protrayed as smart and sarcastic in most of his characterizaion, in constrast to Lui Bei's other main strategist Zhuge Liang, a reserved and fastidous man who Pang Tong is one of the few that can equal him intellectually. Overall he's the character I can most clearly see myself in, which says a lot in a story that has hundreds of officers representing the entire gamut of character archetypes.

After playing the games for a few years I learned about the novel that they are based on and the actual events behind it. When I first started studying Mandarin my goal was to one day be able to read the entire story in Chinese. Sadly I stopped studying the language after college and never really came close. Perhaps one day I'll have the space in my life to pick up my study again, but regardless the story remains one that is very important to me.

There is one chapter in it that really cements my relation to Pang Tong's character. In chapter 57, Pang Tong anonymously the role of a city magistrate in a small town in Liu Bei's kingdom after a falling out with Sun Quan. In the first 100 days in his post he does absolutely no work. Pang Tong, considering the tasks assigned to him to be beneath a man of his talents, spends the entire time drinking and partying intend of tending to his role. When news of this reaches Liu Bei, he is furious and sends one of his most trusted generals, Zhang Fei, to demand answers from this lazy adminstrator as to why he has let the town's affairs languish while he spends his days and nights drinking.

When Zhang Fei arrives, he finds Pang Tong hungover from another long night of drinking. Infuriated, he is ready to execute Pang Tong where he stands, however a minister who was accompianing him and knew of Pang Tong's reputation convinced him to hear him out.

"My brother took you for a decent person," said Zhang Fei, angrily, "and sent you here as magistrate. How dare you throw the affairs of the county into disorder?"

"Do you think I have done as you say, General?" said Pang Tong. "What affairs have I disordered?"

"You have been here over a hundred days and spent the whole time in dissipation. Is not that disorderly?"

"Where would be the difficulty in dealing with the business of a trifling county like this? I pray you, General, sit down for a while till I have settled the cases."

And with that Pang Tong spent the rest of the morning and afternoon completeing the entirety of the work that had piled up over the last 100 days. By mid-afternoon the entire backlog had been cleared flawlessly.

This done, the Magistrate threw aside his pen and turned to the inquisitors, saying, "Where is the disorder? When I can take on Cao Cao and Sun Quan as easily as I can read this paper, what attention from me is needed for the business of this paltry place?"

Zhang Fei was so impressed by this feat he immediately returned to Liu Bei to relay what he had seen and to recommend he immediately visit with Pang Tong to recruit him as a strategist. Liu Bei turns to discuss the matter with his cheif strategist Zhuge Liang, who knew of Pang Tong's ability from the battle of Chi Bi, had this to say with regard to Pang Tong's behavior, "When a person of transcendent abilities is sent to a paltry post, he always turns to wine out of simple ennui."

Well earlier this week I had my own Pang Tong moment. I have spent much of my time preoccupied with other matters at my job. I work in at an IT helpdesk and while I haven't quite spent the whole time drinking instead of doing work, I DID have about 3 months worth of helpdesk tickets sitting open in my queue in various stages of completion. After a few complaints about the status of my queue, I knocked out 200 items in a single day this week to return it to some state of order. I don't think the CEO is going to be knocking on my door anytime soon to give me a promotion out of that, but in the context of this story it does show why I am prone to let minor tasks languish until I feel they deserve my attention.

I've been fortunate enough to always be surrounded by very intelligent people. I went to one of the top high schools in NYC and I am engaged to a woman who is incredibly smart and talented. A lot of us though were known though for being lazy, troublemakers, underachivers, etc. The thing is though, if you asked us why we behaved like this most of us would tell you we're just kind of bored. Motivation is a funny thing. Challenge creates interest and engagment, which leads to creation and productivity, and often leads to more challenges. Boredom causes disinterst and laziness, which leads to disassociation. It's why I have a theory of personal interia. The more active you are the more you tend to remain in motion, while inactivity will cause you to tend to remain stationary.

It's not much of a secret to those that know me that I find my job boring and unimportant. Sure there is no shortage of people breaking computers and we're a relatively small IT team dealing with an entire comany. But really there is so much going on in the world that making IT systems work just seems to trivial. For every Zhuge Liang in the world, geniuses who are steadfast in their study and work tirelessly to achieve success no matter their situation, there are five Pang Tongs, people of equal ability who have fallen into the trap of just trying to escape their boredom with whatever means they can find. The difference between the two can often be as simple as being given the opportunity to actually make use of their talents.

Being bored is, of course, not an excuse to slack off. Ultimately sometimes the only way to be given an opportunity is to make one for yourself. 2018 is the year that I've decided is time that I stop languishing in a menial job that contains no intristic value to me. What makes this story so timely for me is that Saturday I got my acceptance letter for the grad school program I applied for and will be starting in the fall. And then, in what seems like a the universe determined to give me a sign that it's time for the Fledgling Phoenix (Pang Tong's nickname) to rise, almost immediately after I got that letter I received a text from a friend to come hang out for his birthday. What did he want to do? Get drunk at another friend's house and play Romance of the Three Kingdoms, something we haven't done in years!

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This is very well written @cygon! Congratulations on the acceptance letter! That's a great feeling. A motivational kick in the pants, yeah? It IS hard to be productive sometimes when we know there are things more fulfilling and challenging that we are capable of. I can't imagine how bored rats must be wink. Hope you had a nice time spending time with your friends and celebrating. I really do believe the universe puts on the paths we need to be on to learn, grow, and become what is in our true potential. Maybe that's superstitious, but with stories such as yours, and my own experiences, it's a reinforced belief, I suppose.

Thanks! I'm a man of science so definitely I try to be as unsuperstitious as possible, but there are times like these where the coinsidences are interesting to say the least. A lot has gone very right for me the last few years since making a conscious decision to be truer to myself.

Well I certainly missed you, exciting times getting the acceptance letter for the grad school it sounds perfect for you and will help you achieve what you really want to. I'm sure we have all been there, just plodding along doing what is needed and not feeling inspired - and I think you are quite correct challenge does inspire us and when we take on a big difficult task it does help us to excel.

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#thealliance

Thanks, I am always in awe of how much of a posting machine you are!

I enjoyed reading this post thoroughly especially on how you story about Pang Tong and all the historical figures whom I know a bit here and there though movies and stories like Liu Being, Zhu Ge Liang and also Zhang Fei.

What's even more amazing is you adapted Pang Tong into your real life and that's genius itself. Your philosophy of

The more active you are the more you tend to remain in motion, while inactivity will cause you to tend to remain stationary.

Is very profound. It is a very motivating way to look at challenges. Cheers for such an excellent write up, @cygon :)

Thanks! I always tell people when they have to take something new on and they are worried on how it will fit in that it doesn't matter, somehow when there's more to do you will find a way to get more done.

I'd be getting high to play the game, but that's just me. LOL. Man this is a great read. I knew from the first few sentences that you must've gone to college. Not because, college teaches to write eloquently, you just struck me as the sort. And academics tend to recognize academics. I like how you show here that some thing seemingly unimportant like a video game can actually be a learning experience and help one to introspect. I'm more into silly fantasy gaming like Mario or Final Fantasy. BTW, might wanna think about following @gamersunited (I play DnB on their Discord every Thurs now). I really dig your sentiments about the job and work in general. I've come to my own conclusion that jobs are basically obsolete at this point. We can feed and house ever human in a sustainable manner indefinitely on this planet. I unschool my kids and together with their mother we're learning to live off-grid and sustainable. And we read books! Keep up the good works here, don't be a stranger. I'm glad to see your post gaining the value it deserves. I'm from NYC as well. And I'm applying for grad school rn. We have a lot in common. See you around discord hopefully.

Nice, yeah it been in and out lately, hopefully will be more in the next few weeks. My writing has definitely gotten a lot better since college, I used to think it was a weakness of mine in school because I hated the writing we had to do there. Since then things like Steem and actually just writing what I want to write has helped me turn it into a strength. College was one of the first times school felt like it had a point.

I'm a big proponent of UBI (Universal Basic Income, I'm sure you're familiar) and I think that it's the only logical conclusion with how productive humans in general have become. There's simply not enough work that going to exist in the future to actually ensure everyone has a living wage. Of course the powers that be want us trapped in a labor economy, so I think the transition there is going to get really ugly...

Hope you get into the program you're looking for and I'm sure I'll run into you at Hydro if I don't see you in NYC before then.

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Wow, what a good post, i really like this one. Resteemed and hoping we will get this trending. Wish you continuous success here on steem.

I decided to feature your article in my weekly Flew Shot.

@cygon I relate so much to your post brother. I didn't go to a top school, but I did start college at 16 and graduated with a degree before graduating high school. I actually have not been fortunate when it comes to being surrounded by intellectuals. I did what was expected to me, pretty well in high school, but college started dwindling. I realized, why should I learn trivial stuff that I can pick up almost at my command. I learn the core concepts, skip all my classes, and manage with a 3.0, doing the bare minimum in my opinion. I applaud you for returning to learning, but I don't believe college is the best way.

Search within, you have the answers. Look to nature for beauty and intelligence. I hang out with nature because its the most intelligent thing in my life. I'm not judging you, your choice is yours! I believe picking up self-exploration is an empowering characteristic. School is once again, almost a lazy way out for us Pang Tongs. I bet you are capable of finding any information you need and could implement a regimen to learn it quicker, and most importantly your innocence will stay in tact. You won't think there is a correct way of doing something because you'll have created your own way, and it may be worse, but it could be genius.

Creating genius due to your ignorance is something that makes you unique, by reading this post I know that you are different. I feel it in the letters, in the flow of your sentences, I feel you brother.

I hope to get to know you more, I can't wait to see your upcoming posts.

-Diff

Beautiful post, I enjoyed it a lot. "For every Zhuge Liang in the world [...] there are five Pang Tongs, people of equal ability who have fallen into the trap of just trying to escape their boredom with whatever means they can find." This is epic, a wonderful morale of the story, a memorable quote.
And I fully subscribe to the theory of personal inertia