Daodejing, Verse 48

Daodejing - Other Voices

Simplify
In contemporary society, we usually think that doing more and being more is best. The key term for doing more is multitasking. As for being more, it's all about building one's identity like building your profile on a social website. However, to live a more fulfilling life, it's better to do less and be less. Then you can realize that you are a part of a whole and not a busy bee.

Doing more is a distraction from life. Instead of doing one thing well, you are doing many things poorly. Perhaps you can get a lot done, but there is no reward because the next day you have just as much to do. You can only focus achieving these tasks like a mouse in a maze. It's the rat race.

Being more is also a distraction. You can only be your biology and your skill. Your personality is just an illusion to make your ego feel comfortable. If you think about personality in the modern world, it's mostly made up of material preferences as a young adult. Who we are is how we relate to people. It's no use building up this great persona if nobody sees it, and usually nobody cares to see it. Interaction is key; everything else is a false identity.

I spent the last 8 years of my life trying to simplify myself. In that time, I have distanced myself from sports (Green Bay Packers), popular culture icons (Beatles), political diatribes (liberals), and even this (Taoism). I've come to realize that I don't have to pick apart and label the different things that make me. Once I do that, I don't seek these things out. Instead I can distance them from me.

I was going to reference a website with a similar philosophy about simplifying. However I found it ironic that it's steps to simplify your life were not simple at all. For me, I have to realize the material self is an illusion. Once I remove that, I realize I don't need all these materials for identity. All I need is me.

Passage of inspiration, Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching:
To become learned, gain daily
To obtain the Tao, reduce daily
Reduce and reduce again until all action is reduced to non-action
Then no one is left
Nothing is done, yet nothing is left undone.

After writing this passage, I also find it easier to deal with death. When I die, I can ask, "Was I ever here? And do I care because now I am gone." And then I truly become part of the whole as the part cannot be distinguished from the whole anymore.
~ from The Categories Within, author Jeremy, original post date: 1/11/09 ~

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