64

What is rooted is easy to nourish.
What is recent is easy to correct.
What is brittle is easy to break.
What is small is easy to scatter.

Prevent trouble before it arises.
Put things in order before they exist.
     The giant pine tree
     grows from a tiny sprout.
The journey of a thousand miles
starts from beneath your feet.

Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe.

Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
He remains as calm
at the end as at the beginning.
He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose.

What he desires is non-desire;
what he learns is to unlearn.
He simply reminds people
of who they have always been.
He cares about nothing but the Tao.
Thus he can care for all things.

Wednesday is the pivot point of the week.

Jimmy Kimmel is back on ABC. His late night show was summarily kicked off the national airwaves due to an observation he voiced about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Heretofore Kimmel and many of us assumed (erroneously) that you can make a verbal mistake without fear of being persecuted by the government. What have we to lose by admitting that we were wrong to assume the 1st amendment of the Constitution was and is, as sacred as sacred can be? Nothing at all.

Kimmel is back on the air. No one in the administration has admitted being wrong, has apologized for coercion. And in fact the Sinclair group, owning many ABC affiliates refuses to restore the broadcast to the stations it owns. A giant pine tree grows from a tiny sprout.

And this one, – this one (the will to deprive Kimmel of his voice) is Big. 

Another attempt is certain.

The quoted lines above bear no explanation. The meaning conveyed to me will not be the same as that for you. You and I are situated differently, each of us residing at a different fold-point in our lives. The elements meriting cultivation, the beginning “sprouts” will be unique for you and for I. Lao-tsu grants us permission to put our heads down to attend to the “small things.” “Rushing or trying or forcing” is uncalled for, unproductive…

Life is life. Life belongs to no one. Life is no one’s possession.