Of course everyone is aware of events in Israel.  No need to recount details of the attack by Hamas upon Israeli neighborhoods.  Over a thousand were murdered, and hostages were taken to Gaza.

The tit-for-tat bloodletting continues apace, as no leader has come to the fore lately, advocating a statehood resolution for displaced Palestinians.  The odds against genocide have been long, now seem impossible.  The image of the bromance between President Biden and the Prime Minister of Israel is foreboding, a harbinger of what is under preparation for the Israeli Defense Force, and for thousands trapped in Gaza.

I ask myself, is an alternative future possible, — what could we imagine, what might we create ourselves to be?  This!

The Master said,

‘The Tao does not exhaust itself
in what is greatest,
nor is it ever absent from what is least;
and therefore it is to be found complete and diffused in all things.

How wide is its universal comprehension!
How deep is its unfathomableness!

The embodiment of its attributes in benevolence and righteousness
is but a small result of its spirit-like (working);
but it is only the perfect man/woman who can determine this.
The perfect man/woman has (the charge of) the world; – is not the charge great?
and yet it is not sufficient to embarrass him.

He wields the handle of power over the whole world,
and yet it is nothing to him.
His discrimination detects everything false,
and no consideration of gain moves him.
He penetrates to the truth of things,
and can guard that which is fundamental.

So it is that heaven and earth are external to him,
and he views all things with indifference,
and his spirit is never straitened by them.

He has comprehended the Tao, and is in harmony with its characteristics;
he pushes back benevolence and righteousness (into their proper place),
and deals with ceremonies and music as (simply) guests:

yes, the mind of the perfect man/woman determines all things aright.’

—Zhuangzi, The Way of Heaven, by Zhuang Zhou, trans. James Legge