A clear day in Shanghai

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

With my sister visiting, I haven't had much chance to read or think much recently. I have continued with 'Sputnik Sweetheart' but otherwise have not had a chance to put much of a dent in 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations'.

The wikipedia entry on Frank Herbert gives scant information about his influences. Before becoming successful as a novelist, he worked as a newspaper journalist and magazine editor, as well as working as a photographer for the US Navy Seabees during WWII.

The research for Dune took him six years to complete. Frank Herbert was interested in general semantics, which in many ways seems to base itself on a restatement of David Hume's ideas on causation and the problem of induction. The idea of general semantics is basically to clarify thinking: the 'Litany Against Fear', written above, seems to be a good example of the aim of general semantics. I also see strong similarities between the ideas of general semantics and those written in certain passages in 菜根谭: [君子之心,雨过天晴], as well as [事悟而痴除,性定而動正]in particular spring to mind. English wikipedia has no entry on 菜根谭("Cai Gen Tan", traditional character version), and the Chinese version basically is a blurb saying that it was written in the Ming dynasty and written by 洪自诚.

In reading Jack Vance's books, I am always quite convinced that Vance draw upon his experiences travelling in the Merchant Marine and touring the world when he creates new locales in his novels. Apparently Frank Herbert and Jack Vance were also friends, and they and their respective families lived together in Mexico for some time.

Frank Herbert said the following about writing:

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write." There's no difference on paper between the two.