The idea for this book came from friends, at the home of which, I was allowed to make sound-recordings of the television series Kung Fu. All the tidbits of Wisdom, it appeared, were excellent items for discussion. I gathered these well-spoken pieces of Wisdom and Human Dignity, Ethics and Happiness, in my note books. Many an acquaintance had long since pressed me to assemble such fundamental Wisdom as there was in the books of all ages, (mostly unread), but relative to our own wretched life, our lethal problems. In the end, I decided to prepare a book and use the set-up of the Kung Fu series and of the other Chinese wise, just as we do use literature nowadays, i.e. by quotations and commentary, in short stretches. Yet I used the modern view, i.e late 20th century life.
Needless to say that the Tao Te Ching, the Analects, the Dhammapada, should be joined by similar sayings of the GrecoRoman sources available. In keeping with the wish to bind the reader's attention only for short periods by a sequence of short items, like many a Sage, I therefore tried not to go into lengthy rhetoric, hence, kept the items apart, not in logically following order. Yet there are links and cross-connections all through the book. After all, Life is singular. The alphabetical list then, makes references possible in a variety of ways. Related items, also, are refered to at the end of each item.
This is a prolog, not an epilog. The former is a letter to the reader before he reads the text, the latter is for after reading the text. A prolog, therefore, should be situated prior to the text, yet, because of the priority of the text, and the comparatively unimportance of it, the prolog comes after. I have numbered the lose items right through from beginning to end, so that even the alphabetical register, instead of giving the pages, now refer to the item numbers. It gives a far more efficient way for relating to each other. In this way, there is no need for chapters and paragraphs, and certainly not for the clumsy Roman Numerals (See [12]). Yet, a breaking up into parts seemed a favourable thing to do, especially with regard to the alphabetical list. The division in Books, one less than Herodotus' nine, I made through the insertion of blank pages, a thing I always regretted in books of my library. The 16 digital counting, or rather the doubles the 32, 64, 96 etc. is pure play. When we discuss the basic stupidity of our clumsy decimal-, ten digital-, system of calculation, our terrorised kids who have to calculate also in a 60 digital geometry, clock and so on, we might as well play or act out a better alternative, i.e. the 16 digital. Certainly in our age of computers, systems extraposed upon the binary system, i.e. an 8, or 16 digital one should be given thought. When a proper and fair World-Government has been established and cleared up the lethal mess we are in now (1989), it will become a world of Sanity and Peace, emptied of 999 pro-mille of its overabundancy. It is then time to change our inefficient and clumsy ways of calculation, geometry, calendar, clock, the Date-Line, etc. No doubt a 16 digital system plus a binary system will emerge as the better.
In such a system, where 16 is written as 10, and 100 means 256 digits, the Books would cover 1-20, 21-40, and so on. One only has to have the New feeling of this 16 digital system.
Finally, I have used as little footnotes as possible and wanted to keep
some blank space after each item for making notes too. After all, it is a book of discussion points, i.e. study.