Death's Earth-shattering Existence= No More.

I have yet to understand this book. By understand, I mean, is there a religion based on this? One guy wrote it, and yet people all over the world decide to follow its morals and teachings. Is it because deep down we know it speaks the truth and good acts? And who is this Lao Tsu guy anyway? If I sound like an ignorant bonehead, I’m sorry for my inability to regard common knowledge and my ability to constantly sound stupid.

Any who, all in all, I pretty much enjoyed this text. Maybe it was the fact that a page consists of mostly two paragraphs double spaced and very cool words that amount to mean so much more than they seem.

In page 76 it says,

“If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death.
If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means that a man
Will be killed, Who will dare break the law?”

If you are offering someone a bargain, or blackmail, if the blackmail doesn’t mean a thing them, you won’t get what you want. If I get grounded, and my mom decides to take away television privileges (which are basically non-threatening considering my life is mostly books) I would not see that as punishment and continue on my merry, happy way.

Basically, you can’t lose something, or fear it’s loss, if you never wanted it in the first place. You can’t fear something that is of no major thrill or life-threat to you. You just can’t.

I don’t get the meaning of it, in the way that I have yet to figure out how this is supposed to appeal to us in regular life. Is it a recommendation to jail executioners to eradicate food privileges instead of answer with obvious death.

Or maybe not.

Back to the whole text, and maybe I’ll sound less dense.

I think the Tao is mostly based on the nature of things, how everything balances out and makes the universe that much more poised. We should not fight nature, or try to accommodate the universe. We will be more in harmony than if we act against it.

I also got the idea that Tsu had a concrete belief on thinking for one’s self, and making own decisions, rather than be constantly be subjected to following specific rules.

We are supposed to follow our hearts and be true to ourselves. We’re to live simply, modestly, and be happy with what we have. We have to believe that we are plentiful in everything that we have, in a way, being happy no matter what the circumstances.