In the Tao Te
Ching, there is a verse that says we should always try to be in harmony with
the Dao. Chances are we do not pursue that to the fullest. We hold up the ideal
in its purest form, but we do not achieve it, or more honestly, attempt to. We are
creatures of habit and convenience. It would be inconvenient for us to change
our ways. We are like a peanut shell that promises a peanut, but when opened is
ultimately empty. We like to talk about things like that but have no real
intention of doing anything. Sometimes, we cannot due to circumstances in our
lives. Life always has a way of getting in the way. But there are opportunities
that we could grasp, but fail to do so. It’s always ‘next time’. So we go along
changing nothing and looking at things from afar. It’s like being behind a big
picture window. We can’t touch what is behind it but we like to look. We are
not in harmony, we hit an occasional note like the blind squirrel who once in a
while finds an acorn. I wonder if we can really hope to attain such a thing. Maybe
our world is too complex, our lives too full of things to ever realistically
hope of being in harmony. Maybe we are just kidding ourselves.
