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The Daoist Answer is one that I honestly wish I could live by.  To essentially live natural and free with no form of education. Of course in this day and age that is not realistic unless one lives in some remote location with no contact to the outside world.  Or perhaps grew up in a closed society that lived solely off the land, or even lived in 369-286 B.C.E.  The legendary figure Laozi who was a 6^th century B.C.E. archivist created this Daoism phenomenon.  Like many other things there is always someone who is different and goes against the grain.  Confucius thought the opposite; he emphasized the importance of education and earnest striving for moral improvement and good government.  The Daoists thought highly against such efforts as artificial and useless.   The conflict between the two ideals makes complete sense; I compare Daoism to the hippies.  Hippies were in love with nature and in some ways lived off the earth.  They were organic and showed a sense of yin and yang philosophy.  They were accepting and wanted peace, especially in the Vietnam era where peace was what everyone wanted.  Reading about this era I try and place myself in that time to try and see what it would be like.  I find a sense of peace among this Daoism concept.  It truly makes me wish that I could find my own Daoism one day, I’m thinking along the lines of retirement.  I can retreat to the woods and live among the trees and flowers and birds and all the other forest dwelling creatures.  Possibly paint a picture just like the Temple on a Mountain Ledge from chapter 5.

Greeks and Persians are some very interesting people.  Their ancient civilizations were amongst the most historic of all.  They created so many things and changed the way civilizations are run.  The movie 300 came to mind when reading this part of chapter 4.  Even though 300 were near the end of the Persian Empire and who knows how accurate it really was, it made me think.  While the Persians were these conquering, civilized society whom had hierarchy the Greeks had some great things of their own.  The Greeks were a free society who spread out and formed their own colonies.  They had states and were able to govern themselves.  Of course some states became more famous or stronger than the others, but they were individuals who lived as one.  Both the Greeks and Persians are a great example of adaptation.  They grew with time and learned how to thrive as separate societies, of course differently and against each other, but they were really the hallmark to ancient civilizations.