52. read the Tao Te Ching

I found a few translations in the university library and chose the one by John C.H. Wu because the cover was attractive and there wasn't any commentary. I wanted just the verses as written by Lao Tzu. The text supports me in this. Simplicity is much better than complexity, and the masses are happier if they remain uneducated anyway. :)

It's a lovely read. Mind bending, familiar, so wrong, so right . . . and worth pondering, if only because this philosophy posits conclusions I could never find on my own. Even when I flat out disagree, after some thought I find that this old man isn't entirely nonsensical. There's something there, and even when I cannot grasp the deeper meaning it's charming and fun. The unexpected is around every corner. I felt as though Lao Tzu crouched in the pages waiting to swat me over the head with a bouquet of flowers.

"Welcome disgrace as a pleasant surprise. Prize calamities as your own body."

What can you do? You laugh at him. Then he explains himself and good grief, but he's right! I'm not about to convert to Taoism, but if I'd met Lao Tzu I probably would have liked him.

A sample:

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.

We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.

We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.

Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.