History on Fire - EPISODE 78 Bruce Lee (Part 2)

EPISODE 78 Bruce Lee (Part 2)

06/12/21 • 148 min

“Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques or means which serve its ends.” — Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee’s methodology :

“1. Research your own experience.

2. Absorb what is useful.

3. Reject what is useless.

4. Add what is specifically your own.”

“I maintain that truth is a pathless land and you cannot approach it by any religion. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.” — Jiddhu Krishnamurti

“This doesn’t look like success to me.” — Sovannahry Em

“A martial artist is a human being first. Just as nationalities have nothing to do with one’s humanity, so they have nothing to do with the martial arts.” — Bruce Lee

Ask anyone for one name they associate with martial arts, and odds are they will mention Bruce Lee. Because of his career, millions of people were introduced to martial arts. Thanks to his movies, Lee achieved enduring, worldwide fame, broke plenty of box office records, and forever changed the aesthetics of action films. Not bad for a skinny kid from Hong Kong who arrived in United States with the proverbial shirt on his back. The image of his hyper-muscular body in combat pose has become iconic. But there was a lot more to Bruce Lee than meets the eye. He could have been a rock star or a spiritual leader or anything else he had wished… Martial arts was just a channel for his energy. Had he put that same energy anywhere else, he’d have probably had similar success. Despite Hollywood turning him down time and time again due to racial prejudices, Lee refused to take no for an answer and more or less single-handedly changed the way in which Asian people were perceived in the West. His philosophical insights also changed the face of martial arts training, and introduced masses of people to Taoism and Zen Buddhism. His creative & anti-authoritarian approach to life captured the best of the essence of the 1960s. Get ready for a ride because this is an incredible story I have wanted to tell since I first started podcasting.

This episode covers Bruce Lee’s philosophy and life from 1965 through his death in 1973.

Bruce Lee’s methodology :

“1. Research your own experience.

2. Absorb what is useful.

3. Reject what is useless.

4. Add what is specifically your own.”

“This doesn’t look like success to me.” — Sovannahry Em

“A martial artist is a human being first. Just as nationalities have nothing to do with one’s humanity, so they have nothing to do with the martial arts.” — Bruce Lee

This episode covers Bruce Lee’s philosophy and life from 1965 through his death in 1973.

Previous Episode

EPISODE 77 Bruce Lee (Part 1)

“Energy is eternal delight.” William Blake

“Hong Kong in the 1950s was a depressed place. Post–World War II Hong Kong had suffered from unemployment, a poor economy, over-crowding, homelessness, and people taking advantage of each other. Gangs roamed the street, and juvenile delinquents ran rampant.” Hawkins Cheung

“Teachers should never impose their favorite patterns on their students—he said—They should be finding out what works for them, and what does not work for them. The individual is more important than the style.” Bruce Lee

“I feel I have this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all of these combined…” Bruce Lee

This episode covers Bruce Lee’s life from birth to his famous fight with Wong Jack Man in 1964.

Next Episode

EPISODE 85: The Siege That Changed All of History

“I cut off their heads. I burned them with fire. With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool. Men I impaled on stakes. The city I destroyed, devastated… the young men and maidens I burned in the fire.” Ashurnairpal II

“I filled the wide plain with the corpses of his warriors…. These [rebels] I impaled on stakes. …A pyramid of heads I erected in front of the city.” Salmaneser III

“Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, ‘The Lord will rescue us!’ Have the gods of any other nations ever saved their people from the king of Assyria? What happened to the gods of Hamath and Arpad? And what about the gods of Sepharvaim? Did any god rescue Samaria from my power? What god of any nation has ever been able to save its people from my power? So what makes you think that the Lord can rescue Jerusalem from me?” Isaiah 36:18-20

History is a fickle beast. Some events may not seem like much at the time when they happen, but they end up radically shaping all events afterwards. For example, had just one event turned out different—an event largely forgotten today, such as the siege of Jerusalem in 701 BCE—and all of history would have changed. If the siege had ended in the way everyone expected it to end, Judaism would have disappeared from the pages of history, and Christianity and Islam would have never been born. Can you imagine how different the world would be if you were to remove the entire history of the three main monotheistic religions?

In this episode we’ll tackle this greatest of ‘what ifs.’ In the process of doing so, we’ll discuss the origins of Western monotheism, Assyrian culture, Hebrew legends, the Assyrian protection racket, the clash between monotheistic Hebrews and polytheistic Hebrews, how the Assyrians turned 10 of the tribes of Israel into the “lost tribes”, committing ‘suicide by Assyrian’, the destruction of Lachish, what may have happened in Jerusalem in 701 BCE, and much more.