Acceptance

I didn't want to move to Ocean Shores -- my wife wasn't too thrilled with it either.  But this was how the cards fell.  

We have now lived in our 690 sq. ft. apartment for going on 3 1/2 years.  We've made some friends.  There are organizations we are involved with.  We have sort of adopted our 15 year old neighbor as our pseudo-granddaughter.

I'm still not overly thrilled with living in this town that caters to tourists, but I've learned to accept it.  This is where we've landed, so we are trying to make the best of it.

And that's a big life lesson.  You don't always get what you want.  It is not uncommon for circumstances to dictate the situation.  While there are times and variables that are in one's control, much of our lives are dictated by external forces.

The old Taoist adage is certainly true.  Learning to go with the flow -- acceptance -- is far easier (and less stressful) than constantly trying to swim upstream.  

Why fight the current when the vast majority of the time all it means is that you wear yourself out and yet find yourself in more or less the same spot?

Real Life Tao - Early Mornings on the Beach

Trey Smith

Since moving to Ocean Shores, I take Jaz to the beach every morning for exercise. On most days, we arrive at or just after sunrise. In most cases, no one else is on the beach -- at least within eyeshot. My dog chases seagulls or sticks that I toss into the surf. Me? I watch the waves ebb and flow, ebb and flow. Mesmerized.

A person can be a Taoist (or simply find symmetry in Taoist metaphors) anywhere at anytime, but it is so much easier at the beach! The concepts of transformation and ever returning are on display 24/7. The waves coming in quickly transform into the waves going out. While water constantly recedes toward the ocean, it concurrently always migrates toward land.

It is a symphony with no apparent beginning or end. From the standpoint of my singular life, the tides have been this way from before the time I was born and will remain so long after I die.

When I am on the beach, I am at peace. I understand the unknowable just a wee bit more than at any other time. Watching the rhythm of the waves, the words of the Taoist sages ring true...wordlessly.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Go With the Flow...Even When the Flow Don't Go

Trey Smith

Last night my wife and I did something we don't do very often: we had dinner in a sit-down eatery. Slaters -- decorated as a 1950s burger joint -- is one of our local favorites. Since money tends to be tight, we don't go to Slaters very often and, when we do, it is usually for takeout since I generally don't eat in public (too many people and my swallowing difficulties).

After we ordered our meals -- salads! -- the waitress brought out glasses of water and straws. Della plunged her straw into her glass of lemon water and started using it right away. I attempted to do the same...but I quickly noticed there was a distinct problem. Try as I might, I couldn't seem to draw up any water from the straw into my mouth. I pulled the straw from my glass and noticed that it was missing a characteristic element.

For a straw to work as intended, both ends need to be open. My straw had a closed end! Consequently, it was impossible to draw the water out of my glass,

I could have flagged down our waitress to complain and ask for a new straw. But, you know, a straw isn't really necessary. I could just easily drink directly from the glass! That's what I decided to do.

Since the restaurant had more people in it than I prefer, to say that I was a bit uncomfortable in that setting is an understatement. I was quite fidgety and, at one point early on, I wasn't sure I could take it. What helped me through the situation was the non-functional straw.

Each time I forced it into my glass of water, it almost popped out of the glass onto the table. Since it wasn't hollow, it was buoyant. With almost childlike fascination, both Della and I became immersed in my efforts to see if I could get the straw to pop out of the glass completely. We noticed that, if I blew air into the straw and then clasped a pinkie over it, it became even more buoyant. After several attempts, I felt like a champion Olympic athlete when -- at long last -- the straw exploded out of the glass of water and ended up several inches away on the table.

I wanted to circle the diner high fiving all the patrons before ascending the podium to accept the cherished golden straw! I would tell the assembled reporters of my years of training and sacrifice in perfecting my craft. And I would beam because, here on the world stage, I was first person to accomplish this momentous feat.

Yes, I could have tossed aside that non-functional straw, but function, my friends, is in the eye of the beholder!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Laozi and Zhuangzi Are Not Surprised

Trey Smith

It's been said that money is the root of all evil. But does money really make people more likely to lie, cheat and steal? New research released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says "yes".

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods, reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were also more likely to:

• exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3),
• take valued goods from others (study 4),
• lie in a negotiation (study 5),
• cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6),
• and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals.

Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.
~ from New Study: The Wealthy Are More Unethical by Bud Meyers ~

Greed goes hand-in-hand with striving, the opposite of wu wei. When enough is never sufficient, you spend the vast majority of your time and energy pursuing more. It never matters how much you are able to obtain -- you always see more on the table just waiting to be scooped up.

Because you are one of many, others are pursuing the same ends that you are. Rules and etiquette are for suckers. Waiting your turn simply puts you further behind. When greed is your god, nothing can be allowed to stand in your way. Obstacles and hurdles are to be smashed. You must get to the finish line first or else you have failed and failure, in your world, is not an option.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Every Writer Has a Point of View

Trey Smith

All journalism is advocacy journalism. No matter how it's presented, every report by every reporter advances someone's point of view. The advocacy can be hidden, as it is in the monotone narration of a news anchor for a big network like CBS or NBC (where the biases of advertisers and corporate backers like GE are disguised in a thousand subtle ways), or it can be out in the open, as it proudly is with Greenwald, or graspingly with Sorkin, or institutionally with a company like Fox.

But to pretend there's such a thing as journalism without advocacy is just silly; nobody in this business really takes that concept seriously. "Objectivity" is a fairy tale invented purely for the consumption of the credulous public, sort of like the Santa Claus myth. Obviously, journalists can strive to be balanced and objective, but that's all it is, striving.
~ from Hey, MSM: All Journalism is Advocacy Journalism by Matt Taibbi ~

It's not just journalism either. Every blog and website advocates a point of view. In fact, I will go a step further. Every writer -- whatever age or level of ability -- is advocating something. We are all subjective creatures and our subjectivity is almost impossible to mask.

What a writer chooses to include or exclude underlines their point of view. This is as true for journalists as it is for speechwriters, songwriters and poets!

It drives me crazy when people admonish others for not being "objective," like there is an untethered truth out there waiting to be grasped. Even if such a thing existed -- I personally don't think it does -- not a one of us could see it because we would approach it with our own set of prejudices and preferences. As soon as we tried to grasp hold of an objective truth with a subjective mind, that truth would evaporate before our eyes!

That's why Laozi wrote, "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." He understood that whatever we may say about the Grand Mystery is filtered through our own subjectiveness. Of course, that was his subjective opinion! ;-)

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Psst! Do You Want To Know a Secret?

Trey Smith

The Terrorists already knew, and have long known, that the US government is doing everything possible to surveil their telephonic and internet communications. The Chinese have long known, and have repeatedly said, that the US is hacking into both their governmental and civilian systems (just as the Chinese are doing to the US). The Russians have long known that the US and UK try to intercept the conversations of their leaders just as the Russians do to the US and the UK.

They haven't learned anything from these disclosures that they didn't already well know. The people who have learned things they didn't already know are American citizens who have no connection to terrorism or foreign intelligence, as well as hundreds of millions of citizens around the world about whom the same is true. What they have learned is that the vast bulk of this surveillance apparatus is directed not at the Chinese or Russian governments or the Terrorists, but at them.

And that is precisely why the US government is so furious and will bring its full weight to bear against these disclosures. What has been "harmed" is not the national security of the US but the ability of its political leaders to work against their own citizens and citizens around the world in the dark, with zero transparency or real accountability. If anything is a crime, it's that secret, unaccountable and deceitful behavior: not the shining of light on it.
~ from On the Espionage Act Charges Against Edward Snowden by Glenn Greenwald ~

Aah yes. Another post on this general topic. I continue to write on this subject because it underscores a glaring difference between the manner the US government conducts itself and Taoist philosophy -- this is a Taoist blog, ya know!

As we slowly wend our way through the Zhuangzi, many of the snippets point toward a completely different way of governance. For the purposes of this post, however, allow me to direct your attention back to the Tao Te Ching. Like his philosophic counterpart, Laozi recommends an entirely different course of action.

If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.
If he would lead them, he must follow behind.
In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed;
When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.
The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.
from Verse 66

I have three treasures which I hold and keep.
The first is mercy; the second is economy;
The third is daring not to be ahead of others.
From mercy comes courage; from economy comes generosity;
From humility comes leadership.

Nowadays men shun mercy, but try to be brave;
They abandon economy, but try to be generous;
They do not believe in humility, but always try to be first.
from Verse 67

For the most part -- there ARE a few exceptions to the general rule -- governing through secrecy is the antithesis of humility. The humble leader does not try to hide behind an impenetrable wall of secrets. If you feel you cannot share basic information with your own citizens, then you are behaving in an arrogant manner. You are putting yourself and your interests first. You are doing so in such a way that underscores that you think you are better than everyone else.

Just look at our everyday lives. In most instances, we keep secrets from others because we are ashamed of the truth and we don't want others to know what we really are thinking or up to. For example, the cheating spouse doesn't want his/her partner to know that he/she is having sexual relations with another person. The cheating spouse wants to enjoy their jollies without confrontation from their committed partner.

When a government secretly spies on its own citizens -- people not suspected of any wrongdoing -- it behaves like a cheating spouse. It wants to reap information (and control) without a confrontation from the people being spied upon.

Throughout the writing of the Taoist sages, it is strongly suggested that leaders should model the thought and behavior they want their citizens to emulate. Does this mean that the US government wants its citizens to be cunning, secretive and deceitful?

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - IQ Is Not So Smart

Trey Smith

One of the best passages from Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes' book about the American meritocracy, recounted a moment in 2009 when debate raged about who President Obama should appoint to the Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor was thought to be on his short list. But The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen and Harvard's Laurence Tribe argued that she should be passed over for somewhat smarter candidates. "Keep in mind the person under discussion is someone who, from humble beginnings in the Bronx, had gained entry to Princeton, graduated summa cum laude, and gone on to Yale Law, where she edited the Yale Law Journal," Hayes observed. "She had checked off every box on the to-do list of meritocratic achievement. Apparently it wasn't enough." Hayes deemed the incident an example of a "Cult of Smartness" that has taken hold. Observers behave not only as if its possible to accurately rank people in order from most to least smart, but that the right person for a job is always the one deemed smartest. "While smartness is necessary for competent elites," Hayes retorts, "it is far from sufficient: wisdom, judgment, empathy, and ethical rigor are all as important, even if those traits are far less valued."
~ from How the 'Cult of Smartness' Distorts the Immigration Debate by Conor Friedersdorf ~

There is a certain member of my family (who will remain nameless) who has an over fascination with IQ (intelligent quotient). In far too many conversations, this individual tries to figure out who are the brainiest people on the face of the earth. When discussing other family members, friends or even casual acquaintances, the number one criteria for discerning their worth to themselves and society is how erudite my relative thinks they are.

While I don't dispute that smarts are one way to judge a person, it isn't an end all, be all yardstick in my book. I know many highly intelligent people who seem to lack a lick of commonsense and others who are bereft of compassion or a sense of morality/fair play. Personally, I would much rather associate with a person who, though they may lack a high IQ, exemplifies wisdom, humility and kindness.

This notion that worldly intelligence isn't all that it's cracked up to be goes to the heart of many passages in the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi. In the last verse of the former, Lao Tzu writes,

Those who know are not learned.
The learned do not know.

For me, this does not meaning that knowledge, intelligence and learning have no place in our lives, but we err when we place to much emphasis on them. The development of wisdom surpasses intelligence by a wide margin. And here's the thing about wisdom: You don't learn it, it learns you!

There are no mental exercises or formulas that will allow any one of us to become wise. We can study from sunup til sundown and wisdom easily will elude us. The reason for this is that wisdom is born of experience. It is born of living itself. It is born of being willing to fail and then to pick ourselves up again.

A high level of intelligence often can be a great impediment to the acquisition of wisdom. Smart people tend to think too much of themselves and their abilities. Because they think they know most or all of the answers, their failures are viewed as someone else's fault or due to unforeseen circumstances. They refuse to allow the experience to learn them and many tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - So Many Ways

Trey Smith

One of the central theses of philosophical Taoism is this notion that there are as many ways as there are beings. Each life form has an innate nature that is different and unique from other life forms. I was reminded of this idea when I read the following article posted at The Guardian.

Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the US east coast. They will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600 to one. Maybe more.

But ominous as that sounds — along with scientists' horror-movie name for the infestation, Brood II — they're harmless. These insects won't hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won't ever see them.

"It's not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people," says May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois entomologist.

They're looking for just one thing: sex. And they've been waiting quite a long time.

Since 1996, this group of one-inch bugs, in wingless nymph form, has been a few feet underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 64F. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.

Other cicadas do not follow this unique pattern. It is not part of their innate nature. If a cicada king or queen arose and tried to force all cicadas to live underground for 17 long years, most of them would die in short order! It is not their way.

It is the same with people. What might work for you might not work for me and vice versa. The way you achieved success in some endeavor may have worked for you fantastically, but if I followed the same steps, I may or may not succeed as you did. In fact, it might so happen that the path I took was the exact opposite of yours and yet I achieved much the same goals and objectives that you did.

Just like this type of cicada, we each must seek out and follow our own paths. And we should remember that path seeking is not a competition. Just because you and I choose different roads does not mean that one is superior to the other. That would be like saying that the path of the 17 year cicada is that much better than the path of the 13 year or annual cicada!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - A Big Wad of Poo

Trey Smith

Amid all the tumult in our lives, our 13 year old cat (Dylan) has been exhibiting signs that he's not feeling too good. He's been a bit more cantankerous than usual and he has recently been having trouble motoring around the house. We realized it was time for a physical examination, but Dylan isn't too keen for those sorts of things! Not only does he hiss and scratch, but as a long-haired cat, it's often difficult to see much of anything.

After more poking and prodding that he certainly was interested in, we discovered the source of his irritability. His fur had become so matted around his poo hole that it was serving as a barrier to his ability to remove completely the feces from his body. There, under layers of fur, we found a giant stinky wad of poo!

We (more Della than me) quickly remedied the problem. We filled up the kitchen sink with warm water and sat him in it. Being a cat -- most felines hate water -- he acted like we were trying to remove his head from his body. He struggled and fought, but we kept his bottom end submerged. After what seemed like hours (about 5 minutes), it was very easy to remove the wad of poo as well as the matted fur. In no time at all, he realized what a service we had performed and slipped into his quasi-affectionate self again.

I bring this up not to gross you out -- though I'm sure several of you genuinely are grossed out -- but to make a point about each of us. Like Dylan, our egos can get all wadded up like a mass of matted fur. When we try to jettison negativity, it gets caught up in the wad of our egos and sticks to us like glue. We become irritable and lash out at those close to us. A good deal of the time we don't even notice the wad.

So, it's a good idea to perform a bit of self-examination every so often. If we are patient and look carefully, we will be able to locate the source of our suffering. Once we see what the problem is, then we can untangle the stinky egoic wad which will allow the negativity to fall away.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Way Outside the Box

Trey Smith

One of the things Zhuangzi challenges us to do is to think outside the box. That's why many of his stories are so topsy-turvy. He is encouraging us to wipe away our prejudices and biases to look at life through new eyes. For this reason, me thinks, if Zhuangzi was still alive, he would give Jonathan Frieman a big high five.

Like many people -- me included -- Frieman thinks this idea of corporate personhood is bonkers. A corporation is NOT a person; it's an artificial entity created BY humans to conduct business activities. But the US Supreme Court thinks otherwise and so corporations now enjoy many of the same rights -- not necessarily the same responsibilities -- as flesh-and-blood people.

For the last several years, Frieman has been trying to think of a way to illustrate this absurdity and he decided on a strategy that is both brilliant and creative. What did he do? He decided to drive by "himself" in a lane of the highway reserved for vehicles carrying more than one passenger. He did this in the hope that he would be pulled over by a police officer. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally met with success! Now he could put his novel idea into motion.

As the officer pointed out that he was alone in his car, Frieman said this was not true. He had a passenger. At this point, he showed the officer a document called the Articles of Incorporation. This document is used to create a corporation and, as we all should know, corporations legally are viewed as persons. So, that meant two "people" were in the car!

He still received a ticket anyhow. He went to court and lost, but he plans to appeal. Whether he ultimately wins or loses his appeal, I applaud him for his gumption. We need more people willing to think outside the box.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Every Act?

Trey Smith

In yesterday morning's installment of the Real Life Tao series, I wrote, "There really are no throwaway actions in this life for EVERY act produces a ripple." Sounds rather profound, doesn't it? But it does beg the question: Do you mean every single act?

It is a fair question. A lot of the things we do each day seem inconsequential -- like deciding which brand of cereal to eat for breakfast or which pair of pants to put on. While I'm typing this, my nose started itching and so, in the privacy of my own home, I picked my nose. How on earth could that innocuous act cause a ripple of any import?

My answer to that is that some of the ripples created don't lead to anything dramatic. Some of the ripples don't travel that far. In the case of picking my nose, that act has led to my nose not itching and, because my nose doesn't itch, I am less distracted. Being less distracted, I feel better about myself. When a person feels better about themselves, they are more apt to be productive.

You see, even the most mundane act leads somewhere. The amalgamation of mundane acts shapes the person you and I become. Our actions are like threads or strands in a spider's web. Viewed in isolation, many of these threads or strands may seem unimportant, but when woven together, those "insignificant" seeming threads or strands become the web itself. Remove one and you lessen the integrity of the whole.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Ripples of Life

Trey Smith

We often like to think that our lives are our own -- each of us is an island unto ourselves. We are independent actors on our own center stage. What I do is my business and my business alone.

But life is an interconnected web. Every action begets other actions. Every action starts a ripple and, though we often are not cognizant of how a ripple we started impacts other people or circumstances, that ripple spreads out far and wide. Many times the ripples bear luscious fruit, but at other times, the fruit turns out to be bitter.

On Thursday, a 6 year old boy fell into the icy grip of South Dakota's Big Sioux River. I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose, but his action led to the deaths of two people. The first was his 16 year old sister. She jumped in to try to save her little brother, only to succumb to the icy water herself. A passerby noticed the girl struggling in the water and jumped in to try to save her. He ended up dying too.

And the 6 year old? He managed to save himself. But think of the guilt he must live with: Two people died because HE fell into the river.

As he grows older, he must come to grips with the effects of that one ripple in his life. Hopefully, he will learn that he did not cause those two deaths, but the action of falling into the river set the stage.

Most of the ripples that emanate from our lives don't have life and death consequences, but some do. A lot of our consumer choices are made on the backs of faceless workers in faraway places who live lives marked by oppression and poverty. When we don't think too much about war, our apathy -- an action in itself -- sentences other people to misery and death. And when we disregard the environmental consequences of our actions, we jeopardize the lives of other species as well as our own.

There really are no throwaway actions in this life for EVERY act produces a ripple.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Ingrown Nature

Trey Smith

I was born with a birth defect in my left hip. As a result, I wore braces for much of my first three years. While I have continued to have hip problems all throughout life, there is another nagging problem that has bedeviled me: ingrown toenails! The worst offenders are the big toes on either foot, but each of my ten toes suffers from the same issue.

My braces -- one of which I still have among my keepsakes -- came with ill-fitting shoes. The shoes didn't keep up with my growing body and, in time, they began to impact the development of my feet. Eight of my toes -- not the two pinkies -- are crooked and the nails of all the toes grow into the quick on a routine basis.

Over the years, various doctors have tried different strategies to remedy this problem, but to no avail. The ingrown nature of my toes always returns to this altered state. And so, I spend many hours each week clipping my nails and digging them out of the inflamed skin around them. I also spend more time than I like howling as I bang one toe or another into objects like furniture!

*****

A lot of people have trouble understanding how a child who grows up in an abusive home environment can then turn around to become an abuser themselves in adulthood. Like a toe, abuse becomes part of their ingrown nature. The abuse they witnessed and/or suffered during their developing years alters the way they view the world and themselves. Abuse becomes a de facto method of dealing with certain kinds of stress. It is very difficult, though not impossible, to overcome.

This is the primary reason that society has created a variety of strategies to try to break the cycle of abuse. The thinking here is that, if the abuse can be identified and stopped during a child's formative years, then it won't become part and parcel of their ingrown nature.

In this same vein, if my doctors had noticed that the shoes connected to my braces were impinging upon my toes, they could have devised strategies to alleviate the problem. Obviously, no one noticed this and so I have had to deal with the pain and discomfort ever since.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - A Fool's Errand

Trey Smith

While I sometimes mention sports on this blog, I rarely reference golf. It's not that I dislike golf, but I wouldn't list it as one of my top five favorite sports. But I am writing about it because of a remarkable quote from the swing coach of Michael Thompson, who won this past week's PGA tournament. Here's what Susie Meyers had to say about her client's golf game.

Trying to get consistency is like going after a fool's errand. It doesn't happen in life. If you try to be consistent you live in a frustrating world. Take everything for what it is and let it be, and at the end of the day, hopefully you can say you did the best you could. We don't try to be consistent at all.

A very Taoist-like perspective, I would say.

The problem is not that consistency is a bad thing; it's more the trying part. Trying involves active thinking. It's about trying to get your body to meet the expectations of the mind. It's the opposite of wu wei -- going with the flow of the present situation.

Meyers isn't saying that Thompson doesn't practice, but it's obvious to me that she wants her protege to get to the point in which his golf swing becomes second nature. He does it without actively thinking about what he's doing. Sometimes he will hit the ball fluidly and beautifully. Sometimes he won't. But instead of grousing about what he might have gone wrong, he merely will address the next shot based on what is and NOT what could have been.

Me thinks that's a great philosophy for life, in general.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - 40 Days and 40 Nights

Trey Smith

While talking on the phone last night, Della and I calculated how long it's been since we last saw each other. Once we pinpointed our last day of face-to-face contact, we realized we have been apart for 40 days and 40 nights! She is planning to come home the weekend after next and, at that point, the meter will be up to 50 days. This is not the outcome of her AmeriCorps experience that we desired, but it is what it is.

So often, when people reference the Taoist concept of to "go with the flow," it has to do with positive or rather innocuous aspects of life. In such situations, the idea is not to trip up yourself and instead to enjoy the ride. We often serve as the catalysts for the obstacles that limit our ability to be successful, so the ancient sages encourage us not to throw up hurdles in our own paths.

But a lot of this life involves circumstances and situations that are not of our choosing. Things pan out in a way that make us unhappy or uncomfortable. In these situations, we often try to force the circumstances to meet with our approval and when they don't, as they often don't, we become miserable and wallow in self-pity.

For me, the notion of "going with the flow" is more meaningful when that flow is going in what we view as the wrong direction. There certainly are times when we have the ability to alter that flow for the benefit of all, but more often than not, we do not possess that capability. And so, all we end up doing is tilting at windmills and making ourselves very unhappy in the process.

Della and I do not like the circumstance we find ourselves in, but we both have decided to "go with the flow." We have decided to make the best of a bad situation. We realize now that we will be lucky to see each other more than a couple of days each month until July 15 and so we will try to make the most of our brief times together. Other than that, we will continue to talk several times per day on the phone and exchange emails frequently.

If nothing else, this experience has taught us a valuable lesson. As Della begins the process of applying for a full-term AmeriCorps position for this Fall, we need to do a better job of scouting out potential landing spots AND, more importantly, we will leave for the next one TOGETHER.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - The Bone Collector

Trey Smith

In our frequent discussions of each individual following their own path, this point often is thought of in terms of human beings alone. I suppose that is natural because we humans know those who are like us the best. We have only begun to scratch the bare surface of comprehending the life of other species. Because of this, it can be difficult to discern what constitutes a path for a giraffe or a geranium.

But when we look at our fellow humans, our task is made more difficult because subjective opinion and analysis tends to seep in. We are apt to place value judgments on what we experience. If someone heads in a direction we favor, then we might say that the person has chosen a good road to walk. If someone heads in direction we disagree with, then we might say that individual has chosen a disastrous path. More often than not, we don't look at the choices through the eyes of the one making them. We only know the vision that pertains to our eyes alone.

As I've mentioned before, I learn a lot of the lessons of Taoism through watching my pets. Each has his/her own personality and each follows a different path in life.

Last night I bought bones for my two dogs. Chewing bones is good for their teeth and it's a great way to reward them for putting up with the strange man -- me -- they live with!

As soon as Lily (the hairless dachshund) received her tasty treat, she dragged it into the front bedroom. Anytime the other dog or cat came anywhere near that room, she growled like she was ready to rip a head off. I didn't see her for hours, but I could hear her merrily chomping on her bone. Well, I think it was the new bone, but it could have been one of many because Lily likes to collect and guard every bone in the house!

Jasmine, on the other hand, is not so protective. She likes to offer her bone to me. She'll chew on it for a while, then she'll pick it up and try to drop it in my lap. I try to explain to her that I'm an ardent vegetarian -- I don't like to touch anything associated with meat -- but I think Jazzy would like nothing better than for me to use my mouth to take the bone out of her mouth. (Yuk!)

When examining these two different ways of handling bones, I don't say that one is the right way and the other is the wrong way. Each of my girls follows her own path in this regard and I simply accept them as they are. One is massively overprotective and the other is about as giving as a creature could possibly be.

Now, if only I could be so accepting of other humans!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - The Water Line

Trey Smith

One of the key principles in philosophical Taoism is wu wei -- loosely translated as "go with the flow." Both Laozi and Zhuangzi urge us toward genuine spontaneity and learning to live in the moment. In some ways, this general idea has sort of a hippie-like ring to it: Peace, Love and Rock 'n Roll.

But there is another aspect to it as well. To be truly spontaneous, we must concurrently be disciplined and focused. If we don't pay attention to what we are doing, scads of opportunities will pass us by and we will be none the wiser.

As so often happens in our lives, the lesson of mindfulness is best learned from situations in which we allow our attention to become divided. I relearned this lesson earlier today.

I spent the later morning cutting up a variety of vegetables for a soup I planned to eat at supper. I included ample amounts of carrots, parsnips, celery root, mushrooms, red pepper, leek and a large red potato. I placed these items in my soup pot with an adequate amount of water, a vegetarian vegetable bouillon cube and a complement of spices and seasonings. I set the temperature of my electric stove on medium high.

Remembering that my brother told me yesterday that my favorite uncle had been in the hospital with a severe bout of pneumonia, I decided to call Uncle Gene in Arkansas. He reported that, in the beginning of his illness, it was touch-and-go, but he is doing much better now. Since we hadn't talked for several months, we had a lot of catching up to do.

We talked and talked and talked. At about the 45 minute mark, I realized I had completely forgotten that I had a soup pot on the stove. I grabbed my cordless phone, while still talking with my uncle, and raced downstairs. To my horror, all the water had been boiled out of the soup pot and the vegetables were burnt. I had to throw the whole mess out and I will need to scrub the burned vegetables off of the bottom of the pan.

While I had a great conversation with Uncle Gene, this distraction diverted my attention from making good soup. If I had been more mindful of what I was trying to accomplish, I could have waited to call Uncle Gene once the soup had gotten to the point I could set the burner on simmer OR I simply could have turned down the burner while making the call and turned it back up once the call was finished. I didn't do either, so I now must come up with something different for supper.

I am in no way suggesting that a person can't accomplish two or more tasks simultaneously. But to be successful, a person must be mindful of the task[s] at hand. In this case, I wasn't.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Sniffle, Sniffle

Trey Smith

There is an upper respiratory virus -- a head cold -- making its way around the South Bend area and, as luck would have it, I have caught it. This is the second cold I've had in the past 14 months and both of them came on the heels of a serious bout of prolonged constipation. Not surprisingly, the latter condition makes me more susceptible to the former!

I share this information simply to underscore the interconnectedness of life. On the surface, it might seem counterintuitive to suggest that a digestive situation would somehow intersect with a respiratory one. Eating and breathing aren't the same thing! It is more the idea that, when one portion of the biological organism is out of whack, the defense mechanisms for the overall organism can be compromised. In the present case, I believe my general weakened state allowed the cold virus to take hold. As a result, I'm now suffering a tad from congestion, sneezing, watery eyes and a headache.

If things work this way in our own bodies -- as Laozi suggests in the Tao Te Ching -- then we have a window on how the world at large works. It should provide us with clues as to why global warming has become such a serious problem or why war and poverty continue to plague society.

Now, you'll have to excuse me as I go off to sneeze my head off some more!

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - The Madness of Kings

Trey Smith

I learned at the age of 10, when I was shipped off to a New England boarding school where the hazing of younger boys was the principal form of recreation, that those who hunger for power are psychopathic bastards. The bullies in the forms above me, the sadistic masters on our dormitory floors, the deans and the headmaster would morph in later life into bishops, newspaper editors, college presidents, politicians, heads of state, business titans and generals. Those who revel in the ability to manipulate and destroy are demented and deformed individuals. These severely diminished and stunted human beings — think Bill and Hillary Clinton — shower themselves, courtesy of elaborate public relations campaigns and an obsequious press, with encomiums of piety, patriotism, devoted public service, honor, courage and vision, not to mention a lot of money. They are at best mediocrities and usually venal. I have met enough of them to know.
~ from The S and M  Election by Chris Hedges ~

Few religions, philosophies or belief systems are monolithic. There almost always is an interplay of thought and ideas that are contributed by writers and thinkers down through the ages. While fundamentalists try to distill an orthodoxy of foundational beliefs, all this tack represents is a personal and often arbitrary delineation of a portion of that belief system's overall corpus.

The two prime figures at the center of Taoism are Laozi and Zhuangzi. It would take a great deal of mental and literary gymnastics to attempt to say that each viewed Tao and Tao's relationship to human society in the same manner. A great deal of Laozi's book, the Tao Te Ching, offers advice to rulers as to how they can rule in a sagely manner.

Zhuangzi, on the other hand, wasn't that caught up with trying to advise those in the ruling class. His school of thought argued that we should eschew external morality and rely more on the Tao that exists in us all. While I am sure that he recognized that government, in some form, is needed in human society, people who more fully grasp the essence of Tao don't need to be ruled. It is when we look to rulers to set the standards of the day that we unwittingly are admitting that we have hardly grasped the essence of Tao at all.

From my perspective, what Hedges has written above, has a Zhuangzian ring to it. The very desire to rule over others is about as anti-Tao as it gets! It is a mentality fueled by insatiable desire and, utilizing the jargon of psychology, we could say that it indeed is psychopathic.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.

Real Life Tao - Step by Step

Trey Smith

My wife is not the biggest sports fan in the world. Oh, she enjoys taking in a minor league baseball game every now and then, but she generally cringes when I watch some sort of sporting event on TV. She likes to say that sports doesn't add much to the human experience.

While I certainly will agree that sports -- particularly pro sports -- get quite overblown in our society, sports can teach many valuable life lessons...if you are of a mind to look for them. One of these lessons is never to take things for granted.

My alma mater -- Pittsburg State University -- won the NCAA Division II National Championship in football last year. For the first 5 weeks of the season this year, Pitt State remained ranked number one with a 5 - 0 record.

I'm sure many Gorilla (our team mascot) supporters had visions in their heads of a second straight championship. Why not? Our college team was undefeated and ranked in the top ten of many statistical categories.

On October 13, we took on our arch rivals, the NW Missouri State Bobcats. With 12 minutes to go in the third quarter, we were pitching a 14 - 0 shutout. It was all downhill from there! We ended up losing by the score of 31 - 21.

The next week during our homecoming we were pummeled 63 - 14 by Missouri Western University. After we won an uninspiring game against a lesser opponent, we lost again at home this weekend to Lindenwood University 44 - 33 (the game wasn't as close as the score indicates).

In the span of 4 weeks, we went from the top of the mountain to about halfway down. Because of these three losses in a month's time, we won't repeat as National Champions because Pitt State won't even make the playoffs!

So, what does all this have to do with Real Life Tao? In Verse 64 of the Tao Te Ching is one of its most famous lines: "A journey of a thousand miles starts under one's feet/begins with the first step." (It depends on the translator.)

If read superficially, this line would seem to indicate that we must plan our actions before we undertake them. We can't get to where we wish to go without making that first step meaningful.

On deeper reflection, however, EVERY step is a first step. The only step that truly matters is the next one we take. The only step we are aware of is the step we take now. Previous steps have come and gone. We can't change or alter them. Future steps have not transpired and circumstances may change our path.

When we take things for granted, we become too engrossed in the past and too hopeful of the future. Instead of paying attention to the now, we allow our fanciful imagination to run amok. And so, it's not surprising at all that, with our attention divided, our next step becomes a misstep and an endeavor that we THOUGHT would prove successful turns out to be anything but.

This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.