Vs. 20

How much difference between yes and no?
What difference between good and bad?

What the people fear
must be feared.
O desolation!
Not yet, not yet has it reached its limit!

Everybody’s cheerful,
cheerful as if at a party,
or climbing a tower in springtime.
And here I sit unmoved.
clueless, like a child,
a baby too young to smile.

Forlorn, forlorn.
Like a homeless person.
Most people have plenty.
I’m the one that’s poor,
a fool right through.

Ignorant, ignorant.
Most people are so bright.
I’m the one that’s dull.
Most people are so keen.
I don’t have the answers.
Oh, I’m desolate, at sea,
adrift, without harbor.

Everybody has something to do.
I’m the clumsy one.
I’m the different one.
for my food
is the milk of the mother.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. Ursula K Le Guin

This tune is the perfect accompaniment, The Pretender by Jackson Browne.