My fitbit #Fitstats for 12/04/2013: 4,537 steps and 2 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/28KDGG
Daily Tao / 338 – Expression
There’s nothing to paint anymore.
We’ve seen everything from the classical to the absurd.
There’s nothing to write anymore.
As many books are shredded as read.
There’s nothing to sing anymore.
The once avant-garde is now background music.
In a world where expression seems futile, it is hard to maintain creativity. But creativity is a primal impulse. Cave people painted on walls; everyone’s house has some image on display. Primitive scribes wrote records of their experiences; people still keep diaries. Early shamans sang; we still live with music. We cannot abandon creative expression in our daily lives, though it seems hard to come up with something new.
The only way to have fresh expression is to go deep within. In a sense, today’s extreme pluralism eliminates the obligation to do the same as others. At one time, artists, priests, writers, musicians, and craftsmen were obligated to their feudal lords. Today we are not constrained by hierarchical standards. We are free to commune directly with our inner callings.
By coincidence, this mirrors a more sophisticated understanding of the divine. We are no longer in a position of supplication with what is divine. Rather, divinity is a quality from within ourselves.
Daily Fitbit stats
My fitbit #Fitstats for 12/03/2013: 4,782 steps and 2.1 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/28KDGG
Daily Tao / 337 – Moderation
Alternate between the solitary and the social.
Whether alone or with others, keep serenity.
Some people argue that Tao can be known only through bitter asceticism. Others prefer massive congregations. But those who follow Tao are neither too solitary nor too gregarious. They have regular times of privacy. And they equally enjoy being with others.
Privacy is good. But an overly monastic life can lead to unhappiness, delusion, and even insanity. In the same way, relationships are good. But too much social intercourse can lead to conformity, conflict, and stress. Therefore, the way of Tao aims to maximize the good and minimize the bad.
We should have regular times to be alone, meditate alone, even sleep alone. This gives us clarity. Then we can bring this understanding to our relationships. Friendships will be all the more wonderful. Once we understand moderation, we move between the solitary and the social without any mistake.
Daily Fitbit stats
My fitbit #Fitstats for 12/02/2013: 4,748 steps and 2.1 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/28KDGG
Daily Fitbit stats
My fitbit #Fitstats for 12/02/2013: 4,748 steps and 2.1 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/28KDGG
Daily Tao / 336 – Wisdom
A white-haired couple sits on the park bench,
Reading the paper, discussing the day’s news.
He repeats a poem, learned in his youth;
She finishes the stanza as he nods in pleasure.
At twilight, the air seems clearer than noon.
In past times, educators emphasized memorization. You can still meet older people who can recite certain poems, passages from classics and religious texts, or mathematical formulae. In fact, some people assert that those who remember more are wiser.
Young people often have a mania for more and more information. But mere accumulation is not enough. The more you take in, the more that data needs to be managed. Without that, you have encyclopedic knowledge and minuscule wisdom. True wisdom is a qualitative value built on a quantitative foundation. The vital elderly did not become venerable through good memory alone. They also learned to manipulate those facts. They mixed their knowledge with a healthy dose of experience, experimentation, and contemplation. It takes time to intuit special connections between facts.
One might say that wisdom is not simply a mental process but the sum total of a human being.
Daily Fitbit stats
My fitbit #Fitstats for 12/01/2013: 5,524 steps and 2.4 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/28KDGG
Daily Tao / 335 – Prowess
The wrestler was once more solid than a bull.
He loved to flex enormous, oiled forearms
Before he delightedly vanquished foes.
But now, brittle skin is taught over bone,
And his wheeze is a ghost of his manly bellow.
At any point in life, it is prudent to contemplate the nature of prowess. If you have it, glory in it, and use it wisely and compassionately. But you should not think that it is you yourself who are doing these things. You are borrowing this strength. It isn’t yours. It is a gift, something here for you for as long as you are lucky to have it. Once it passes, you will not have the victories, and you will be stuck with the same body and mind. When you have been humbled, what is gone? You are still here, here to feel the pain of not being able to do what you were once able to do — unless you learn how to exercise your prowess without identifying with it.
Those who fail to learn this become bitter old people. They curse life. They lose faith. That is because they placed all their self-worth in their abilities and not in who they were. That is why it is good to meditate, and to accumulate not victories but the experience of those victories. Savor them. No one can ever take that away from you.
It is the experiences that come out of prowess, not prowess itself, that are valuable.
Daily Tao / 334 – Dipper
Bamboo dipper, granite basin.
Crust of ice over inky reservoir.
Moon shimmers in the dipper
Until fullness drains away.
Some people are like dippers. No matter what they try to gather up, it ends up flowing out again. For such people it is exceedingly difficult to accumulate anything in life.
If you are like the dipper, that is all the more reason to concentrate the resources that you have. Poverty of any kind need not be a deterrent if you know how to utilize the wealth you possess. You must embrace your fate, work with it, and take advantage of it.
Ultimately, we cannot truly grasp anything permanently in life. We are born naked, we die naked, and in point of fact we live naked. What we take to us — our clothes, our wealth, our relationships — are all external to us. They are easily taken away from us by bruising fate.
We try to internalize our experiences and our understanding. Even that can be taken away by stress, senility, poor memory, disorganized thinking, drugs, or shock. Truly, we are all dippers. The little that life offers us dribbles away.
Perhaps even the poorest of situations is rich, because all the futility of life leads us to embrace Tao. After all, it is bigger than all infinities and more subtle than the slightest wisp. To feel it requires great strength. To sense it requires a dragonfly’s delicacy. When you tire of trying to hold on to life, you will find the means to enter Tao.
