There is the great mass of nature –it supports my body.
I struggle with my life;
old age brings relief and death rest.
    What makes my life good also
     makes my death good.

A boat may be hidden in a ravine,
or a fishing net in a lake,
and you may think it is safe.

But at midnight a strong man comes
and carries them off
while you are in the dark
knowing nothing about it.

You may hide things, large or small
in the best place,
and still they can disappear.

But if you hide the world in the world,
so that there was no place to which it could be moved,

then this would be the reality of enduring things.

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou trans. by Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, The Great and Honored Teacher.

These words come to shock, to awaken, to illuminate “world”. Often my view of things darkens. I lose myself in counter factual speculations. You know, that “what if” spiral of the imagination. I mean the downward spiral that comes when one entertains alternative futures, If this or that had been different, then.

Without any effort perusing news sources you will come upon a report of the rapid collapse of Ukraine. That is, the imminent and necessary submission to a Russian demand for permanently donating a major portion of their country to Russia. Ukraine will soon become a Russian vassal state, a shell of a once distinct culture and zone of freedom. The prospect causes me nausea.

Loss.

Does not everyone, everybody fears loss… I imagine “moves” I might have made to avoid, etc., etc.. However, in moments of insight, when reading these observations of Zhuangzi as if by a noonday sun I recognize that loss is inevitable. Smaller losses such as of a valued object that I cannot find, or losses which stand to be of a much greater scale. Ukraine.

Such a mix of feelings. There’s the recognition of what has happened or is developing. A shock of discovery. Then dismay follows, feeling sad, the miasma of fog. And sometimes I feel angry, I simply want rage against something or someone(s).

What if after all of that, I arrive in my head/heart to appreciate that loss is part of the game. The loss is not really the surprising thing. What is surprising, how extraordinary that one is invited to play at all. This is a three-dimensioned game, to live here, to live now, – the privilege of struggle. To live is to be gamer, to know the game. Living is playing, winning and losing.

How about a tune? This one, a classic adds to the message of the Zhuangzi. Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads.