“When men get together
to pit their strength in games of skill,
they start off in a light and friendly mood
but usually end up in a dark and angry one,
and if they go on too long,
they start resorting to various underhanded tricks.

When men meet at some ceremony to drink,
they start off in an orderly manner
but usually end up in disorder;
and if they go on too long,
they start indulging in various irregular amusements.

It is the same with all things.

What starts out being sincere
usually ends up being deceitful.
What was simple in the beginning
acquires monstrous proportions
in the end…

When animals face death,
they do not care
what cries they make;
their breath comes in gasps,
and a wild fierceness is born in their hearts.”

—Zhuangzi, The World of Men, trans. by Burton Watson, pub. Columbia Univ. Press, 1968

There is always an end.  Who could deny that everything that begins, inevitably, inexorably has it’s ending?  Still, the resolve to deny the adamant, diamond-like facticity persists, not unlike a worm gnawing in our hearts.  This life, our world, is a game that we happily play with others when we are in a youthful mode.  But then.

We shudder, recoil to imagine the end that must come.  What extremes of behavior, of expense, of dedication of resources to commission memorials, — all in a vain effort to resist change, to keep the status quo going, after our demise.  Even if no more than shadow-form of inscription on a headstone.

Are we no more than animals facing death?

Reading the Taoist classic, The Zhuangzi, I hear echo of the Delphic inscription, “nothing in excess”…