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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
Rip Lao Tzu, you would've loved Twitter. 3.5/5.
In all seriousness, I do get the appeal. This serves as a good reminder about many trivial things that we often tend to forget in life. Overall, I think I (fundamentally) lack the seriousness this book requires for me to enjoy it unironically—I kept reading parts of this in a white guy podcast voice (I know I am the problem, but oh well, I digress).
I'd recommend this only if you're into philosophy.
In all seriousness, I do get the appeal. This serves as a good reminder about many trivial things that we often tend to forget in life. Overall, I think I (fundamentally) lack the seriousness this book requires for me to enjoy it unironically—I kept reading parts of this in a white guy podcast voice (I know I am the problem, but oh well, I digress).
I'd recommend this only if you're into philosophy.
inspiring
reflective
Those who think to win the world
by doing something to it,
I see them come to grief.
As an introduction to the Tao Te Ching Ursula K. Le Guin's interpretation satisfies the layman. It breathes, it persuades. It is likely rather inaccurate in places. This didn't matter much to me. I could also imitate Lao Tzu --
The scholars who thought
they could understand the Way
by being faithful to it
were the first to drift off-course.
Taoism evokes something Beckettian inside me. The silence is perfect and adding my voice to it only hides the thing itself. Never within one's grasp. I cannot earnestly say whether any of this means anything at all -- is Taoism nothing but clever paradox and rhetoric?
My words are so easy to understand,
so easy to follow,
and yet nobody in the world
understands or follows them.
I don't believe it is meaningless. Just don't ask me to interpret anything at all. Let me say no more.
Thoughtful people hear about the Way
and try hard to follow it.
Ordinary people hear about the Way
and wander onto it and off it.
Thoughtless people hear about the Way
and make jokes about it.
It wouldn't be the Way
if there weren't jokes about it.
by doing something to it,
I see them come to grief.
As an introduction to the Tao Te Ching Ursula K. Le Guin's interpretation satisfies the layman. It breathes, it persuades. It is likely rather inaccurate in places. This didn't matter much to me. I could also imitate Lao Tzu --
The scholars who thought
they could understand the Way
by being faithful to it
were the first to drift off-course.
Taoism evokes something Beckettian inside me. The silence is perfect and adding my voice to it only hides the thing itself. Never within one's grasp. I cannot earnestly say whether any of this means anything at all -- is Taoism nothing but clever paradox and rhetoric?
My words are so easy to understand,
so easy to follow,
and yet nobody in the world
understands or follows them.
I don't believe it is meaningless. Just don't ask me to interpret anything at all. Let me say no more.
Thoughtful people hear about the Way
and try hard to follow it.
Ordinary people hear about the Way
and wander onto it and off it.
Thoughtless people hear about the Way
and make jokes about it.
It wouldn't be the Way
if there weren't jokes about it.
I’m hoping to read more philosophy and ethics this year and thought I’d start off with this breezy read. It felt extremely idealistic almost to the point of parody, but there’s something so compelling about that. It presents a worldview of acceptance, emptiness, returning to nature, being yielding and working without credit. It presents the “good” we should strive for as something without acclaim or praise, but rather for the benefit of others. It’s an optimistic, kind, and rather beautiful world view and I think I’m better for reading it, but it also feels very far from being practical in today’s age, at least following it as prescribed. But viewing it as a guide, a suggestion to empty myself and not hold so tightly to possessions, ideas, beliefs, I think it’s a lesson I could really use.
This was a phenomenal audiobook. The translator read his translation, and in doing so provided a calm reflective experience. I highly recommend this book.
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
isn't it a little bit disingenuous to try and rate this? i can write all i want, on how it starts and finishes on well-tread avenues realized such that it still reads as new despite its age, yet its midsection—because of that relationship it has to military control and social fabric maintenance showing more clearly—is hopelessly lacking, and on... but it does feel like trying to rate a philosophy based on enjoyment. and that's not really the point. i assume.
because i also think that it would be pointless not to comment on its subjective value, its framework, and how it acts and shifts as a collected set of ideals.
despite verse #50 really just being 'live your truth and you will never die', and how there's so much 'being quiet is good' repeated ad nauseam in different, quickly tiring metaphors; and verse 45's "Be pure like the sheen of silk" seeming to either espouse that manufactured appearances are useful tools, or that beautiful things are inherently good (if not simply a translation fault); there's useful thoughts, truly. and i can't ignore that this kind of writing, this kind of conceptual aid is much more suited to continual rereading and reinterpretation than what i'm attempting.
Only when the family loses its harmony
do we heart of "dutiful sons"
Only when the state is in chaos
do we hear of "loyal ministers"
verse 18
Abandon plots and schemes
Discard profit-seeking
and the people will not become thieves
verse 19
Thus, when two opponents meet
the one without an enemy
will surely triumph
verse 69
The Sage's illness has become ill
his renunciation has been renounced
Now he is free
And every place in this world
is the perfect place to be
verse 71
Why do the people regard death so lightly?—
Because they are so involved with their own living
That’s why they regard death so lightly
In the end,
The treasure of life is missed by those who hold on
and gained by those who let go
verse 75
the best part of these selections is that they don't simply allow, they push you towards continual rethinking, constant reattributing their meanings to different avenues of your life, your purpose, your community, your peace. or whatever they could possibly mean for you, for others. i just wished that, at this point, for all of the multiplicity these (and the collection as a whole) can apply towards, that they hit upon something that felt greater, that its ethereality could manifest more concretely.
maybe i just have to keep learning it all, because maybe that's not how that mirage will show for me.
https://nat-ho.me/id3/reviews/2025/03/25/tao-te-ching
https://nat-ho.me/id3/reviews/2025/03/25/tao-te-ching
reflective
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced