There is a time and a place, or a context, for scientific thought.  And there is concurrently a place for abstract casuistry.  

From The New Criterion:

​"When Levin comes to this realization, he understands that meaningfulness has always been there right before his eyes, hidden in plain view. Cloaked in its ordinariness, it is a daily miracle. 'And I watched for [material] miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle that would convince me,' Levin thinks. 'And here is the miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it!'”

"When cultures take the wrong path, they find it hard to change direction. Often enough, thinkers cannot imagine any alternative because their habits of thought are themselves the product of the chosen path. Of course, had their predecessors taken a different path, the alternative habits of thought that resulted would have proven just as resistant to change. Intellectual egoism predisposes people to believe that their prejudices are validated by History itself. In either case, what might have happened, but did not, remains in the shadows.
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Nevertheless, cultures, no less than individuals, sometimes make choices that answer to their current needs but prove counterproductive later on. Then they require a sort of philosophical therapy. They need to become aware of their habits of thoughts and the circumstances that initially generated them. Only then could they go back to explore the road not taken."
The rest of the story

photo: Cloud Gate, Chicago, IL, 2016

"Fear comes into being when I desire to be in a particular pattern. To live without fear means to live without a particular pattern. When I demand a particular way of living, that in itself is a source of fear. My difficulty is my desire to live in a certain frame. Can I not break the frame? I can do so only when I see the truth: that the frame is causing fear and that this fear is strengthening the frame. If I say I must break the frame because I want to be free of fear, then I am merely following another pattern which will cause further fear. Any action on my part based on the desire to break the frame will only create another pattern, and therefore fear. How am I to break the frame without causing fear, that is without any conscious or unconscious action on my part with regard to it? This means that I must not act, I must make no movement to break the frame.
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What happens to me when I am simply looking at the frame without doing anything about it? I see that the mind itself is the frame, the pattern; it lives in the habitual pattern which it has created for itself. Therefore, the mind itself is fear. Whatever the mind does goes towards strengthening an old pattern or furthering a new one. This means that whatever the mind does to get rid of fear causes fear."

J. Krishnamurti
The First and Last Freedom - Chapter 10
http://bit.ly/23stTsx

The essence of Gongfu, of Yoga, and thus of life is the realization of unification or non-duality.  And while this is often spoken of in yogic and spiritual circles, it is not so obvious is the study of martial arts.  But Budo, or Gongfu, is in its ultimate sense a spiritual practice, albeit one with many layers and a more subtle sense of path or direction.

There is a scene from the Karate Kid movie where Dre is with Mr. Han visiting a Taoist Temple in the Wundang Mountains and a priestess is out on a ledge charming a cobra with her Kung Fu form.  This is the most loaded scene from the movie.  This short segment contains the full essence of Budo if you can see it.  The priestess is not intimidating or challenging the cobra, she is merging with it, energetically and spiritually.  It should be obvious that all animals have a dantian, a physical body, an energetic body, and a spiritual body.  The priestess is connecting with the snake.  She is locking her vibration with its vibration via their dantians.  As she becomes one with the snake energetically, she realizes she is one with it spiritually, or ultimately, as well.  At this point she is in no danger.  Since she and the snake are ultimately one, the snake will not, nor cannot, attack itself.  Where the snake moves, she moves; where she moves, the snake moves.  As long as she stays connected, vibrates at the same frequency, and has no fear, the snake is not threatened.  This requires a firm grasp of non-duality.