Observations

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) What an odd thing to say. Yet, I don’t know how else to say it, so here is an example: For about ten years now, son Luke and I have been fleshing out a fundamentally simpler, easier way to learn to play music by ear (especially the string […]

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) Most of us eventually realize that all success must inevitably pass through a failure stage. From our first years of stumbling before walking, of mumbling before talking, and on through life we gradually learn (perhaps intuitive and subconscious) that if we would take from a thing, we must […]

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) Pleasure and pain (like life and death) are a fascinating duo. In this relationship, I imagine that pain is the head of the household. That’s not to say pain is ‘the constant‘; that would be going too far, of course. Nevertheless pain, like water, may come close to […]

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) Both pleasure and pain can pull us off balance and dim our sense of well being. This parallels chapter 13’s Favor and disgrace are things that startle. Of course, it is easy to see how pain and disgrace do this, but favor and pleasure? That’s more subtle. The […]

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) The Tao Te Ching is so often terse and vague—especially the original Chinese. I expect one reason is that it points to a reality so often at odds with the story we want to hear. Revealing this point of view less obscurely would feel unsettling, even subversive, to […]

(First Pass: “Chapter of the Week” 2011) Prioritizing life is an important step in managing the demands of life, at least a civilized life. In the wild I suppose circumstance pretty much handle what and when animals do what they do. Having freed ourselves from the drudgery of hunting and gathering whenever we get hungry […]