Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - Chapter 56

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honour and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

Every time I write I fear that someone will take the things I write personally. It's not at all. It's me speaking on ways that I don't want to be, yet, it's ways that I totally recognize that I was and how that led me to my depression and self-hatred. When you're having a bad day and want to just take a baseball bat to a tree -- well, that's how writing works to get the shit out of my head.

Anyways, this passage really moved me. The first two lines are really powerful. Those who constantly say their lives are perfect, and proclaim to anybody who will listen that they love their lives are truly very hurt. What is the motivation for people to do this? I have no idea. By doing it, it's boasting and bragging and arrogant, and it makes people feel like you're rubbing something in. It turns people off of you very quickly. Those who are truly happy in their lives, again like before, do by non-doing. Non-doing is also non-saying. True happiness is something that cannot be articulated and bragged about. It's something that sadly few know (I certainly don't), but, those who know it -- true happiness (I am going to take Gahndi and the Dalai Llama's word for it) -- say that it comes from within....I've lived to where I thought opulence was the way to show I liked my life (remember, "supposed to living"), but, that just led me to wanting to acquire more, and fill a void. If there is any kind of void to fill -- you aren't happy.

Nowadays, I feel rich through life experiences, and remembering the amazing things I've been blessed to be able to do and experience. It's no longer what I've amassed, or how I make a nice little living while I feel like I barely do much "work." I don't have the need to tell anybody how amazing things are because it's all in my heart and in my head. Instead, psychotically, I'd rather tell people how shitty my life is, which is sadly also an all too common human affliction. But, when there is someone you come across who is truly down and out (believe me -- I know!), it's so absolutely about having compassion.

Taking the time to show genuine care when a fellow human being is down can mean the world, and have a real ripple affect on the planet. Compassion for others opens the flood gates to personal happiness also. This can only be obtained by gaining a global grasp of the world, and the life that exists outside of your bubble. To know of the suffering going on this world will make you so much more apt to true compassion, and again, it's an unbreakable chain that will make you appreciate what you have and what you are that much more.

The middle stanza can be mis-represented and thought of completely wrong if you're in the wrong mind set. All I take out of it is "Temper your sharpness, simplify your problems, mask your brightness." Pretty simple. If you're bragadocious about your happiness or your wealth, people despise this more than anything on the planet. It's just like when athletes and celebrities pull the "do you know who I am? card. How disgusting is that?

In the end, when we're all alone, we're all the same as each other. Money, job, stature, relationships, whatever...It's great if you're happy, but, to borrow (errr, steal) a line from Wavy Gravy "we're all just bozos on the bus." We're on this ship together, and when you strip it all down, we're all fucked up, we're all capable of greatness, and we're all amazing gifts on the planet.