Taoism

The Tao

It is painfully obvious that we must enjoy fetid, disturbing, unhealthy relationships. We must. Millions of us enter into them, promulgate them, perpetuate them, and bemoan those we've extirpated.

I know, you'll say, "Rob, you're lacking a certain level of alacrity here". Perhaps I am. Perhaps I'm just writing this because I've ended a great relationship that deserves much praise, but my moribundly fecund imagination allows only a bitter response. Perhaps I'm writing this because I've seen one too many Cameron Crowe films. Perhaps I'm writing this because I was three weeks behind on my Word of the Day calendar and I needed an excuse to use them all in one place.

There are certain constants in the universe. Hegel might disagree with me, but then he'd have to say that I was wrong and that throws a wrench into his whole German, rarely smiling, often yelling philosophy. One of those constants is that man will be confused by interactions with the opposite sex. I'd like to apply an eastern approach to the basic constants surrounding these universal constraints (by eastern, I mean they sound like things Yoda would say, I know nothing of the Tao Te Ching). I've purloined most of these from fortune cookies, Lao Tzu, movies and mindless phrases uttered by people sitting on my couch while I was in college. Don't confuse it for advice:

	To know that you are ignorant is best, to know what you do not is disease. Best beginning advice we can start with. You will make basic assumptions regarding the person you are dating. It is best to accept that these are wrong now. You will also dismiss things this person tells you as trivial or outside their character, these you must grasp and use them to comfort yourself when they start dating a crack dealer and trying to give you the "friends" speech.
	At rising it does not illumine at setting no darkness ensues. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, no event, outside of death, allows you to fully understand a person. Any thoughts based on past performance will be shaken throughout the time you know this person. The contrary is also true, a single event can not ever disprove a mate's loyalty. There were plenty of events before that disproved your mate's loyalty, you just weren't looking.
	When knocked from your perch on a tree, you will first reach for branches and then a soft spot to land. You're going to do it. When you loose favor with the person your measure of acceptance is based on you will grab on to what you can on your way down. You'll demean yourself to stop the fall. It's a survival thing. Once the fall is accepted, you'll abandon the tree in favor of a nice place to be miserable. They call it the rebound, but there is very little bouncing involved.
	We pursue that which retreats from us. That one is from Heidegger, so I'll skip the explanation. If his philosophy is correct you already know that this is true and my explanation is something that you wrote to me.
	The secret waits for the insight, of eyes unclouded by longing. Eliminate your intentions. The really good ones can smell an agenda. The really poor ones aren't worth dating in the first place. Lao said it best: "Those who are bound by desire, see only the outward container."
	Their head is a dangerous neighborhood. Things will be locked. Pretty windows will be covered by iron bars. You want to spend as little time in a dangerous neighborhood as possible. You might also want to bring a friend.
	Much talk means much exhaustion; better far it is to keep your thoughts. <insert Yoda chortle here> Most people don't know what's on your mind because they don't want to know. If they wanted to know, you'd go WAY out of your way (say...so far out of your way that you'd have a website devoted to them?) to share your thoughts. You've said too much already. Give breath to what you feel about the person you are with, what they are doing. Don't give breath to your thoughts on Franco-Prussian expansionism trends in the 18th century.
	The sky is everlasting and the Earth is very old. Why? Because the world exists not for itself, it can live on its own. It's not all about you, no matter how much of your world currently is. Just because you've been at every place you've ever gone, it doesn't make you omnipresent. Those things that appear timeless are those things that exist for others. If you ever wonder why your relationships are measured in days or hours or for the poor soul at the dive bar, minutes, it is because you've tried to create something that exists solely for the purpose of you.

I think the important thing here is that we learned something about being in Boy Scouts. No. That's a different article. The important thing here is that we learned something about, oh hell, I don't know anymore. But doesn't the bullet pointed list look nice. I especially like the bullets. If you remember nothing else remember the bullets, that and fecund means to grow over rapidly, like a vine.