WhisperShift

Have you ever read The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz? It talks about how the writers, artists, philosophers, and other intelligentsia of Eastern Europe under Stalinism came to buy into the rhetoric. These copy-towns reminded me of a part in the second chapter "Looking to the West". It talks about, in part, how the central control of science and art (and the Center's need for it to match party rhetoric) eliminates the creativity and small discoveries of the curious scientist and experimental struggling artist. This creates a certain sterility and lack of innovation, which is why Stalinist USSR had to copy so much from the West.

Concerning science:

If the impetus to perfect and use new discoveries has lost none of its drive, the credit lies with the West. ... Russia, copying Western models of automobiles, airplanes, jet engines, television sets, atom bombs and submarines, and such things as radar and penicillin, has now entered the race. The youngest generation in Eastern europe, raised in the worshiping of Russia, is beginning to believe that she is taking the foremost place in the realm of science and technology... This supposition seems to be refuted by the purely practical aims of contemporary Russian science for, as we know, the greatest discoveries are perfected in the course of long disinterested work on the part of many scientists and often bear no immediate results. It seems to be refuted, as well, by the insistence with which propaganda attributes most discoveries to the Russians even while they copy American construction, from bridges to motors, in the minutest detail.

And more concerning art:

More than the West imagines, the intellectuals of the East look to the West for something... The something they look for is a great new writer, a new social philosophy, an artistic movement... The people of the East have already become accustomed to thinking of art and society on an organizational and mass scale...
By destroying all experimentation in art, the Center confined its applied art to a clumsy imitation of Western applied art which, however, is constantly renewed under the influence of experimental easel painting... applied art, cut off from its roots, is bound to prove sterile.

This is talking, obviously, about Stalinist USSR, but I think some of it still applies. USSR probably had stricter control of art, architecture, and science, because of its focus on Realism and a practical central-controlled approach to science, but maybe not.

Copying is seen as an art form in China, as you said, but also when you have such constraints on creativity you (arguably) have to rely on copying from those who have created from a more liberal mix of imitation and innovation in order to adapt to new problems.

I'm still reading the book, so this is probably me regurgitating what I'm taking in, but your work reminded me of it.

I would recommend looking into the various branches of Buddhism and their varying levels of dogma. Some are very much religions, others are more philosophy. I am a skeptic atheist, but I have a soft-spot for Zen thinking.

Im on coumadin and my apocalypse plan is to first raid every pharmacy I can, then Im going to a feed supply and getting a stash of rat poison.

Ive got an aortic mech valve and the clicking drove me nuts at first, but I fell asleep with a stethoscope until I got used to the sound (it helped me know exactly what was going on in there). Slowly but surely I got so used to it that now I can only hear it when I stop to think about it. It'll be a pain for a little while, but your brain learns to tune it out.

Not the OP, but I have a similar heart situation. Ive been told that I have to avoid using heavy weights. Depending on the doc, the advice ranges from "Dont max out your weights and you'll be fine" to "You can help move a couch once in a while, but anything over 40-50lbs shouldnt be done regularly."