v. 64

It’s easy to keep hold of what hasn’t stirred,
easy to plan what hasn’t occurred.
It’s easy to shatter delicate things,
easy to scatter little things.

Do things before they happen.
Get them straight before they get mixed up.

The tree you can’t reach your arms around
grew from a tiny seedling.
The nine-story tower rises
from a heap of clay.
The ten-thousand-mile journey
begins beneath your foot.

Do, and do wrong;
Hold on, and lose.

Not doing, the wise soul
doesn’t do it wrong,
and not holding on,
doesn’t lose it.

(In all their undertakings,
it’s just as they’re finished
that people go wrong.

Mind the end as the beginning,
then it won’t go wrong.)

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Usula K. LeGuin

These verses are uncommon sense.

We Americans are children of the Enlightenment, – our pride rests in reason, to ” just figure it out” as we keep telling ourselves… It seems that “reason” our bias for taking action becomes a bite-in-the-ass. The circle jerk of self-congratulation, of being “the best ever” amounts to having ignored problems brought upon ourselves by our reason, by an actively preferred way of life.  I mean the drought, the heat domes and wild fires, the economy with a dearth of entry level work transitioning to high value work (with a future). I mean the tsunami of advertising, massaging the desire of the consumer to purchase medicine show remedies, and shoddy objects. Americans are acclimated to jiving pitch-men. Shall we include a government (three branches assumed sacred) and a bureaucracy out of touch with a desperately divided citizenry? A government overdue to a remodel?

This list could be built out, but I will stop here.

In summary, we couldn’t say “no”, didn’t regulate anything that might reduce “profits” for anyone.

Suddenly an image from the original Star Wars film comes to mind. You know the final scene of the great battle. I remember the awe(ful) inspiring scene of a damaged tie fighter spinning off into the dark of space.

That’s us my friend.