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Thousands of years ago, ancient Chinese philosophers
while observing the world around them
made a profound discovery
They had been searching for meaning in why and how our world functions
They found that while our world is incredibly complex
it, much like society, functions based on rules
They discovered that while things can appear and disappear
supplies can be exhausted and renewed
nothing truly ever goes away entirely
Thus our world works based on cycles
meaning that everything is constantly in a state of phasing from one form to the next
As we uncovered in The basics of Chinese philosophy
there is in fact one thing that binds all together
That one thing, we identified as Chi
The Ancient Chinese then realized that, since
everything is composed of Chi in different forms
everything must be one in the same
And thus was born the concept that:
what we use to describe our world on a Macro level
can also be used to describe our world on a micro level
They thus set out to define a vocabulary with which they could describe their surroundings
and once successful
rooted their culture in their understanding of the world
according to what they called "wu xíng"
meaning the 5 phases of Chinese Philosophy
or as we call it, "The 5 elements", being:
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water
Upon further reflection of the world
they discovered that not only can everything be described according to the 5 elements
but that the world, at it's most basic level, is dualistic
Thus they returned to their 5 elements theory
and further classified it according to their theory of "yin yáng jia"
meaning the Ying Yang School of Philosophy
or as we call it for short, the theory of "YinYang"
They then realized that, since the world around them
could be described according to these two theories
they must be able to describe themselves in exactly the same way
Thus once again
they set out to examine human behaviour in all its forms
in order to determine exactly how our emotions and behaviours could be applied
And that brings us to: The 5 Elements: Understanding Behaviour
As we continue, we will go element by element
examining in detail how each element manifests
both in the world around us and within ourselves