Comments on Dao, pattern, and the simple life

2026-09-26

These are comments I wrote to a friend in the summer of 2022. They were reading Lao Zi’s Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching is an alternative spelling) at the time in the hope of making sense of their own life’s woes. This friend is of East Asian background, while I am Greek by blood and, as you may have noticed the more important part, by mindset.

These comments do not have any private information, nor do they mention anything specific about my friend. I just discovered them by doing something unrelated in the folder where my private notes are stored. So I decided to make this public.

At the time of that exchange I did not have a copy of Dao De Jing and was thus reading from a website whose links are provided below. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation, though this is not important to me, anyway. By quoting some existing work, I am simply finding a reason to rephrase what I think. I am not appealing to anybody’s authority, I am not hiding behind the genius of another even though I do recognise it, nor am I speaking in the name of some school of thought. I am neither its communicator nor its apologist.

You are dealing with Protesilaos. I am the dragon and you are in my world. The more you read, the more this becomes your world, so we might meet someday.

---

On pattern and patterns

From https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e.

The Tao that can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao;
The Names that can be given
Are not Absolute Names.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the Mother of All Things.

Therefore:
Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.
These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.
They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:
Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.

Below I provide my commentary by rephrasing and then explaining these statements.

[ORIGINAL]
The Tao that can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao;
The Names that can be given
Are not Absolute Names.

[PROTESILAOS]
The Being that can be described
is not the absolute Being;
The names (i.e. descriptions) that can be given
are not the absolute name.

An abstraction is the pattern common to presences. For example, “dog” is a pattern (or set thereof) present in American Pitbull Terrier, German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever. Each of those breed names is an abstraction in its own right, which is common in the particular specimens. The most abstract, then, is that which is present in everything.

As with the case of the “dog” abstraction, the instantiations of it exhibit modality. They not only exist; they exist in some way. Modality is the mode of being. Modality is about the descriptors—the differentiators or specifiers—of the given presence.

Abstractions of abstractions necessarily have increasingly abstract modality. If something can be described, if it has a mode of being, it has modality: a pattern that can be discerned. The most abstract is indescribable, strictly speaking, because it lacks modality. It cannot have modality because that renders it describable, which would mean that it instantiates some greater abstraction.

Consequently, when we use “Being” we are limited by our language. We give a name to something, thus describing it. What we really mean is “that which is most abstract”. We cannot avoid the contradiction of putting it into words yet asking the reader to grasp the concept of the indescribable: absolute Being.

What is in our head is still an approximation, even if we do not name it or speak of it. This is because grasping involves limiting. The most absolute is not comprehensible. Though we can approximate it, meaning that it does not have a pattern, but is pattern as such.

A note here on theology. Being is not some deity in the familiar sense. It (we use “it” conventionally) is not the almighty god, or however we think of gods. Being cannot be the absolute “good”, because that entails modality: it has a disposition of being good, meaning that there exists a non-good and, necessarily, a greater abstraction common to those two. If god or gods exist, if they are mighty and good, they still are presences: instantiations of Being, else pattern. We give them names, we describe them, and so on as patterns.

Same principle for what we might think of as duality: god and the world, mind and body, etc.. There necessarily exists a third magnitude that encompasses the two for them to consist as duality. In other words, there is something common to both of them. We then notice how the two is actually three, which constitute a one, which consists of two.

[ORIGINAL]
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the Mother of All Things.

[PROTESILAOS]
Being is the origin of all
Tropos is what "all" is

Continuing from the above, totality consists of presences. They are, which means that they partake of Being. But they are in some way, which is their modality. As such, I am introducing the Greek word for modality because I like it more: Tropos (found in words such as trope, tropical, psychotropic, entropy, …). All presences partake of Tropos, which makes them describable. They are all patterns, which have pattern as such in common.

[ORIGINAL]
Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.
These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.
They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:
Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.

I think here there is no need to rephrase those statements. We start with a theme that I have mentioned in plenty of my writings, namely, humans are multifaceted. They have reason and emotions and they can be spiritual yet still have needs of their body. These facets do not have a standalone presence: they are part of the greater system which we call “human”. As such, a person cannot be purely rational or spiritual, emotional, etc. One can only ever be a bit of everything. Wisdom, then, consists in this recognition. So we sometimes strip away the passions to think of Being, yet at others we rely on the passions to conceive of Tropos in something that is close to us. The sage knows what the balance is.

For us, Being and Tropos are indistinguishable. Tropos does not have a standalone presence. It is a name we give for instantiations of Being. In a sense, Being does not have a standalone presence either, because it is the most abstract of all there is so it cannot be “alone” as there are no “others” at that level of abstraction.

The last two statements describe how we operate as humans, discerning patterns from the particular to arrive at abstractions, and then discerning patterns in the abstract structure that has revealed itself to grasp a greater abstraction. We thus proceed from particular knowledge to what is described here as the “Secret of All Life”: Being and Tropos, Being as such, pattern.

[ORIGINAL]
When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty,
There arises (the recognition of) ugliness.
When the people of the Earth all know the good as good,
There arises (the recognition of) evil.

Therefore:
Being and non-being interdepend in growth;
Difficult and easy interdepend in completion;
Long and short interdepend in contrast;
High and low interdepend in position;
Tones and voice interdepend in harmony;
Front and behind interdepend in company.

Therefore the Sage:
Manages affairs without action;
Preaches the doctrine without words;
All things take their rise, but he does not turn away from them;
He gives them life, but does not take possession of them;
He acts, but does not appropriate;

The part before the “Therefore the Sage” tells us how opposites are not truly different and how all is one. I explained my position by interpreting the Yin and Yang symbol: https://protesilaos.com/commentary/2022-07-15-yin-yang-interpretation/.

[ NOTE 2026-09-26: Remember that I was writing this in 2022, so links to my writings are from that time. I have since written hundreds of articles that expand on these and many other related themes. ]

Wisdom and indeterminacy

What I have not covered yet is this:

[ORIGINAL]
Therefore the Sage:
Manages affairs without action;
Preaches the doctrine without words;
All things take their rise, but he does not turn away from them;
He gives them life, but does not take possession of them;
He acts, but does not appropriate;

The sage can manage affairs without action because the sage does not have to act in order to figure out what needs to be done. The sage knows, by understanding Being and Tropos, that nothing has to be done. The sage is aware of the limits imposed upon our condition, of the fact that we cannot describe the indescribable, and also understands that the opposites are such only insofar as their modality is concerned. At a more abstract level, they are the same.

The key phrase here is “at a more abstract level”. When we claim that the opposites are indistinguishable from each other, we always refer to a given scope of application. At another scope of application, at the level where their modality is made manifest and is pertinent, we must treat them as distinct from each other. For example, in interpersonal affairs we express feelings for others. When we say, “you are my friend”, the “you” refers to an abstraction which omits the specifics of the given human organism (and all the specifics within the specifics at increasingly more micro levels). This is why I call it the “scope of application”, because it determines what our concepts apply to.

The sage, then, does not act to either create opposites or resolve them. Such is a matter of the scope of application. It is not action that creates those states of affairs, but the way of thinking.

Fundamentally, the sage “preaches the doctrine without words” because there is nothing to describe. When we use words, when we name things, including Being, we do it to communicate between ourselves. We are not sages. With philosophy, we want to be friends of wisdom: that is literally what “philosophy” means as philos (φίλος = friend) and sophia (σοφία = wisdom). And with wisdom we understand the doctrine which, somewhat anti-climactically, does not involve words. Our humanity bounds us to the domain of Tropos, where we necessarily have to use names and rely on language. We have to do this even for Being, which we describe paradoxically as indescribable. There is a terminus we cannot overcome. It is why the sage will not act to do something about it. Nothing can be done about the terminus.

The sage knows the metaphysical truth that no statement, no matter how clever, can ever express in full. I write “knows” because there is no other possibility that is conceivable: all is, and all that is has “is” in common.

As such, the sage is not triggered into action based on stimuli. The sage is tranquil, in a state of ataraxia, which literally means “non-disturbance” in Greek. Non-disturbance here has to do with the creation or resolution of opposites and the essence of the cosmos. The sage knows that everything that has Tropos is subject to transfiguration: it comes and goes. The sage, therefore, cannot become upset about the loss of something or, conversely, be elated by the gain of something else. We do not own anything, not even our self. I offered the latest explanation of this concept here: https://protesilaos.com/interpretations/2022-07-12-lhasa-bells/.

On not holding onto anything

We continue reading from this website: https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/2.

[ORIGINAL]
Accomplishes, but claims no credit.
It is because he lays claim to no credit
That the credit cannot be taken away from him.

This passage is a continuation of my final remarks on the sage’s disposition from the previous section. Basically, the sage takes no credit because, strictly speaking, there is nothing to take, nothing to give, nothing to appropriate. It is not ours.

However, what I like about this passage is the human quality of the sage. Every moron has a huge ego and yearns for the praise of others. The sage, however, knows that there is nothing to be gained from the opinions of others, be they favourable or not. Opinions make no difference on the fact that we own nothing. Opinions cannot change Being and Tropos.

The poetic way that ancient Greeks would present this theme is by appealing to a god to tell them what to say. For example, Homer (author of Iliad and Odyssey), asks from the Muse (Muses are the goddesses of art, letters, and science; “muse” is found in “music” and “museum”, by the way) to sing for him. It is not that Homer or others hallucinated about some woman in the sky reciting poetry. It was a way to take away the egoism from the human: the person is just a messenger, a combiner and amplifier of existing data, who can take no real credit for the message being conveyed. The sage then, could be repeating the words of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, or Apollon, the god of harmony, and so on.

The specifics of the poetic statement do not matter. The idea is to not exalt the sage as a god. No. We must focus on wisdom as such, not the person who is wise. The person can help us befriend wisdom (be philosophers), but we ultimately want wisdom, not the sage. Hence, no-one takes credit. In a manner of speaking, nothing can be taken away from the sage because the sage, like everybody else, owns nothing. To continue with the poetic metaphor, it is the gods who decide such matters.

[ORIGINAL]
Exalt not the wise,
So that the people shall not scheme and contend;
Prize not rare objects,
So that the people shall not steal;
Shut out from site the things of desire,
So that the people's hearts shall not be disturbed.

Therefore in the government of the Sage:
He keeps empty their hearts
Makes full their bellies,
Discourages their ambitions,
Strengthens their frames;
So that the people may be innocent of knowledge and desires.
And the cunning ones shall not presume to interfere.
By action without deeds
May all live in peace.

Here we have the ethical, else political, continuation of what we covered before. Through wisdom, we learn that nothing is ours. We do not exalt the wise, because we know that wisdom is not theirs; we do not prize material possessions as obsessing over them makes us forget the lesson we learnt about non-ownership. In practice, these lessons can help those who are not sages approximate the state of ataraxia. They will not be tranquil in the way a sage is, but they can at least come to better terms with their existence.

I should note here that ethics and politics are indistinguishable in practice. We analyse them as two distinct fields, in the same way we do when we employ terms such as “the society” which is distinct in our mind from “the economy”. But when we consider things in vivo we cannot have politics without moral claims. We also cannot have standalone morality, as it pertains to affairs with an intersubjective scope. There is no standalone subject and there can be no private ethics, in the strict sense. The type of ethics which assumes a certain relationship between a person and some deity is still intersubjective: the person has no standalone presence.

[ORIGINAL]
Tao is a hollow vessel,
And its use is inexhaustible!
Fathomless!
Like the fountain head of all things,
Its sharp edges rounded off,
Its tangles untied,
Its light tempered,
Its turmoil submerged,
Yet dark like deep water it seems to remain.
I do not know whose Son it is,
An image of what existed before God.

This section describes what I have already explained about everything partaking of Being. Even if we learn about all things, Being will remain indescribable, “dark like deep water”. Otherwise, we identify Being indirectly in everything that has Tropos.

The final line in this passage is the same idea as what I already wrote about god or gods in the previous section: deities are presences with modality and, ipso facto, are not absolute.

[ORIGINAL]
Nature is unkind:
It treats the creation like sacrificial straw-dogs.
The Sage is unkind:
He treats the people like sacrificial straw-dogs.
How the universe is like a bellows!
Empty, yet it gives a supply that never fails;

I think we should not take “unkind” to mean evil, vengeful, and the like. It is a metaphorical, albeit blunt, way of saying that everything around us, including ourselves, transfigures regardless of how we feel about it. For me and you there is life and death, given our scope of application. In terms of the cosmos as a whole, there is no life and death: the cosmos always is. Presences constantly come and go. Though what is, is—and that cannot change.

This is why the universe is fundamentally “empty”, because its essence is Being, which is indescribable and lacking in Tropos. Notice the use of the term “fundamentally” and remember the scope of application. If we are talking about specific things, the universe is full. Again, this is a way of thinking, which is what the sage embodies as practice.

Presences in the universe are in a state of constant transfiguration, hence the supply that never fails. I should clarify though that this supply does not come from nothing, does not occur in nothing, and does not go towards or into nothing. If something is in any way related to nothing, there would then be an abstraction of nothingness, which would have to exist, and fundamentally all that exists is of Being. Therefore, if we say that something is coming from nothing, either we are wrong, or we use inaccurate language to describe how something partakes of Being. We can, however, as a figure of speech say that “it came out of nothing/nowhere” to mean that specifically it was not there before, though something else always was.

This constant supply does not increase the stock of presences, so to speak. Transfiguration can be described in plain terms as recycling. In modern Greek we use an expression which translates us “everything around us changes and all stay the same” (όλα γύρω αλλάζουνε κι όλα ίδια μένουν). For the cosmos as whole, nothing changes. What is, is. Again, we have to consider the scope of application. For specific levels of abstraction, change happens continuously.

Without understanding the scope of application, all this would appear nonsensical.

On matters of selfhood and multifacetedness

Reading from https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/3.

[ORIGINAL]
The more it is worked, the more it brings forth.
By many words is wit exhausted.
Rather, therefore, hold to the core.

I believe the first sentence alludes to the intellect, though I would generalise its insight for everything that involves a degree of sophistication or expertise. Regardless of talent or natural ability, we get better at a given task by continuously practising it. Though hard work must be smart as well. There has to be a proper method involved.

The second and third sentences describe me well as an intellectual who is keen on action. I skip endless writings that do not get to the point—you know, when you start reading a book, are in page 50 and still do not understand what the subject matter is… There is an expression for this in English: “beating around the bush”. It does not work for me. I also dislike language that is designed to impress and/or confuse. Profundity is not a function of how fancy our words are, but whether we communicate clearly and accurately, with the understanding that “clearly and accurately” are subject to practicality.

At any rate, I consider this a preference, not a general truth. Perhaps then, tiring out one’s wits with many words that do not really say anything is not a problem unto itself but only with respect to its consequences. When the intellect is distracted by endless chatter they do not have the capacity to grasp abstractions and everything I already covered. This has knock-on effects on ethics/politics as those who do not proceed from wisdom will not behave properly, leading to undesirable states of affairs.

[ORIGINAL]
The Spirit of the Valley never dies.
It is called the Mystic Female.
The Door of the Mystic Female
Is the root of Heaven and Earth.
Continuously, continuously,
It seems to remain.
Draw upon it
And it serves you with ease.

I cannot understand this part. Maybe the “Female” here is Yin in its many meanings?

Personally, I am not fond of anthropomorphic (human-looking) metaphors as they distract us from what we should be focusing on. Especially when they invite us to think of a person’s physical attributes, man, woman, good looking, and so on. For example, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is said to be ever-virgin. Sure, there is a metaphor there though its literal interpretation can easily distract us from noticing it. As such, it is a bad metaphor. If we try to interpret said virginity too much, we simply make the mistake of associating cultural norms with abstractions: we humanise the abstraction to the point where we forget it is not human—it is an abstraction.

To describe abstractions in human terms is understandable because it has didactic and mnemonic value. The key is to never lose sight of the metaphor. We want to employ figurative speech only to the extent that it facilitates our work to communicate the true meaning of the subject matter. For instance, I mentioned before how the Muse is the one who tells Homer what to write: it is okay to describe the muses as women, because it is easier to understand them that way, but the real lesson in Homer’s words is about non-ownership, as I pointed out before, not women whispering in your ear.

[ORIGINAL]
The universe is everlasting.
The reason the universe is everlasting
Is that it does not life for Self.
Therefore it can long endure.

This passage is more clear. The universe is everlasting as there is no other possibility. It is impossible for something to come from nothing, because nothing would then be something, with the potential to beget something else, i.e. cause and effect. An absolute nothing that is would then be the same as Being, but with a different name (with the proviso that Being is indescribable and the name we use is conventional). By “the same”, I mean it would be the abstraction that is most abstract and is thus identified in all the particulars, as I explained earlier.

[ORIGINAL]
Therefore the Sage puts himself last,
And finds himself in the foremost place;
Regards his body as accidental,
And his body is thereby preserved.
Is it not because he does not live for Self
That his Self is realized?

This is another take on the topic of non-ownership. The sage understands that the body is not theirs. As I have written before, nothing is ours, not even our self. The sage knows this and thus refrains from clinging on to the impression that the body is their own.

The allusion to preservation here is either an issue with translation or an inconsistency in the original text. I cannot see how the sage’s body is preservable, given cosmic transfiguration, and I cannot fathom how the sage’s knowledge of non-ownership has any impact on this matter. As such, I register my disagreement with the author or the translator: the preservation of a body in its particular instantiation does not happen. It does not even happen second-by-second, if you think of its constituents coming and going.

In technical terms, we have to consider what “preservation” would even entail. Science tells us that the body is not singular. It is a system of systems, each of which has different life cycles (e.g. cells live and die at a different rate than we do). Further, the body hosts benign microorganisms which also have a life of their own. If we were to reproduce the body, would we be reproducing all those then in their exact configurations? And which snapshot should we pick that is the true representative sample of this body?

But wait, because it does not stop there. The body does not have a standalone presence. It exists within an environment: it is influenced and determined by the environment. Gravity, for example, governs the length of the bones, how fluids flow and organs work, and the like. We know it because astronauts suffer the consequences of a different level of gravity than the Earth’s. So to preserve or replicate the body we need to also do the same for its environment. By extension, we must continue with the environment of the environment until we eventually have to reproduce the entire cosmos.

Again, I disagree with the notion of “preserve” if that was the intended meaning. If something is lost in translation, I am happy to revise this point.

The last two sentences where the question is raised are fecund. What they tell is that the sage has a clear perspective: they do not pursue wrong objectives, such as fame and flattery. As such, the sage is honest which allows their self to be realised: the signal in the noise, if you will.

Though I personally hold that there is no true self. The self always is a subjective narrative and subjectivity necessarily is intersubjectvity due to the fact that human does not—and cannot—have a standalone presence. While I agree that honesty is the right perspective, I do not think that a true self will ever be revealed as a constant, regardless of how sincere one is. Selfhood is circumstantial. It is informed, framed, influenced, conditioned, or otherwise determined by factors that are not limited to it. Whatever its state, it is specific to the constitution of the case. And, remember the notion of “snapshots”: if it is changing, then the true self would necessarily only be the common in the multitude of all snapshots, which is no longer a particular snapshot in the same way that “dog” is an abstraction without too many details so it applies to all specimens but “this specific dog” is a given specimen.

One can be “true” in the sense of not being pretentious, not following the fashions just to fit in, not providing assent to false views simply because they find currency in their milieu, and so on. Still, this kind of truth is another way of expressing honesty; honesty to the best of our abilities in the given situation, which still happens within the overarching constraints of being affected by factors outside our control. Honesty is a disposition, not a perfect state. We want to be honest, but we cannot be non-human through honesty; non-human in the sense of transcending the human condition of messiness.

If anything, the sage would be aware of this relativity and would come to the conclusion that one must not take themselves too seriously. By that I mean that the sage will acknowledge their humanity: the fact that its nature is influenced and determined by factors external to it; the fact that the self is not truly in control of all that is happening to it; the fact that the self is not immutable; the fact that the sage is all too human.

Even the wisest of the wise will not be wisdom incarnate, because wisdom is an abstraction while that which is incarnate has a Tropos that is not limited to wisdom. Remember what I wrote about the multifacetedness of the human condition: intellect, passions, body, spirit, etc. Human is a bit of everything, without exceptions.

Wisdom, then, consists in finding a practical (i.e. imperfect and case-specific) balance between all the facets of the human condition. One cannot be singularly intellectual. One must show emotion when the situation calls for it and one must treat the body with care. This is not mere instruction. We know from everyday experience how, for example, a tired body makes it impossible to concentrate and thus think about something profound. We know that a disturbed emotional state either is caused by or causes effects on the body which lead to a vicious cycle, again affecting how we think of things. Put simply, health is a balance between all the facets; a balance that is sustainable over the long-term (“long-term” in human years, meaning that we do not change from one week to the next or something along those lines). And health is catalytic in how selfhood is conceived. Again, the self is not “true” in some decontextualised sense. By “decontextualised” I mean standalone, as in not accounting for the factors of the case that contribute to its presence.

[ORIGINAL]
The best of men is like water;
Water benefits all things
And does not compete with them.
It dwells in (the lowly) places that all disdain -
Wherein it comes near to the Tao.
In his dwelling, (the Sage) loves the (lowly) earth;
In his heart, he loves what is profound;
In his relations with others, he loves kindness;
In his words, he loves sincerity;
In government, he loves peace;
In business affairs, he loves ability;
In his actions, he loves choosing the right time.
It is because he does not contend
That he is without reproach.

I think this passage is clear and does not require any further commentary, given what I have already expounded on.

Continuing with what I was explaining above, the sage remains a human. We use “the sage” in these notes a lot, though we do not mean to exalt it to some divine status. It is why I prefer the term “philosopher”, which means friend of wisdom. It speaks of an attitude rather than an attribute and in so doing it recognises the imperfection of the human condition. I am a philosopher because I want to live in accordance with wisdom, though because of my humanity I may have a mistaken view of what wisdom is, I may make the wrong choices, and so on.

The sage. then, is an ideal for us to communicate certain principles. We should not treat wise people as infallible—they are not. Nor should we trivialise their wisdom, dimissing them as “you are just human like me”, because that leaves out too many important details.

Avoiding exaggerations

Reading from: https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/4.

[ORIGINAL]
Stretch (a bow) to the very full,
And you will wish you had stopped in time.
Temper a (sword-edge) to its very sharpest,
And the edge will not last long.
When gold and jade fill your hall,
You will not be able to keep them safe.
To be proud with wealth and honor
Is to sow seeds of one's own downfall.
Retire when your work is done,
Such is Heaven's way.

What we learn from this passage is to conduct ourselves in moderation. When something goes to an extreme, it no longer has a positive effect on us. The way I describe this principle is by remarking that the difference between remedy and poison is one of degree. A pill will address the headache. A bottle of pills will kill you.

Everything must be done in moderation, including philosophy. Remember, once again, the multifaceted nature of humanity. If we spend all day philosophising, we will not have enough time to care for the body, or we might miss emotionally fulfilling experiences. That would ultimately be to our detriment. If we ignore the body, it will become unhealthy, and that will undermine our ability to philosophise. If we neglect emotions, we will turn too rationalistic and lose the sensitivity we have for what others can bring to our life. Without emotion, we also forgo the nuance in experiences such as the observation of the sunset or the admiration of a full moon. That sense of joy and awe belongs to our emotional facet. Besides, is it not exciting to study? Excitement is an emotion.

We then want to find the virtuous middle ground in our life. This is not an exact measurement that is true for all people. It is a disposition, a way of living. Our intention is to avoid exaggerations and learn to trust in our own devices, while keeping an open mind for what others may have to say. If we are working all day, our body tells us to stop. Perhaps we should work half as much. If we are getting too excited, maybe we are developing an addiction for that exhilarating experience. Can we then detach ourselves from it? Are we really in control past that moment? You get the idea.

In the Greek tradition the concept of a moderate life is developed in large part through artistic representation. A human who would go to the extremes is said to commit hubris (ύβρις). “Hubris” describes the peculiar brand of cockiness that leads us to defy the limits imposed on us by our nature.

Hubris is often framed in religious terms because those are easier to understand and remember, compared to the austere Delphic maxim “Nothing in excess” (μηδέν άγαν, which would more literally be “nothing led” or, more loosely, “nothing [to be led away] in deviation of the mean”). The gods place limits on humans and punish them if they go beyond them. The gist here is not that gods are micromanaging our lives and are actively trying to harm us. This is the poet’s way of saying that our nature limits us. We are not omnipotent.

We can reason about hubris without reference to gods. Belief in the gods is neither necessary nor relevant. For example, someone who drives a motorcycle at full speed on a wet road without wearing a helmet is committing hubris. If the vehicle loses traction, the driver is most probably dead. We can say that this person is going to anger Zeus, for example, but this is a mental shortcut to describing the wider phenomenon.

Hubris is a practical idea which encapsulates the insight that moderation is a central theme in our life.

[ORIGINAL]
In embracing the One with your soul,
Can you never forsake the Tao?
In controlling your vital force to achieve gentleness,
Can you become like the new-born child?
In cleansing and purifying your Mystic vision,
Can you strive after perfection?
In loving the people and governing the kingdom,
Can you rule without interference?
In opening and shutting the Gate of Heaven,
Can you play the part of the Female?
In comprehending all knowledge,
Can you renounce the mind?

In this part we read about the ideal state one is supposed to achieve on their path to wisdom. I noted above that even the sage is human, which basically means here that this idealism is not what I am looking for.

Sure, if we comprehend all knowledge we can renounce the mind as there will be nothing left for it to learn. Yes, if we make everyone a sage, we will not need to have politics because all people will just do the right thing. In other words, if we become gods we will not worry about human affairs. But we will not become gods, so this entire discussion is not going anywhere. And if we become gods, we will know what to do anyway—we will be gods! Why ask me now, in my all-too-human state, what I will do if/when I am not human anymore? I am still operating in human terms and my asnwer will be framed accordingly, however good I may be at grasping abstractions.

In matters of politics and life in general, I am a pragmatist. Not because I do not like the idea of paradise on earth, so to speak, but due to the fact that the human condition makes us imperfect. For as long as we have this modality, we must deal with it. There will be conflicts, there will be erroneous judgements. Not because we are inherently eristic (combative) or antagonistic, but by virtue of our limited knowledge—we are not omniscient, so one’s opinion will likely clash with another’s.

What we can improve is not the human condition per se, but our disposition. We can become more tolerant of other opinions, beliefs, cultures. We can remain dubitative and inquisitive while giving the other side the benefit of the doubt. We can learn to live with less and not seek to accumulate as much wealth as possible at the expense of others (“others” includes people but also all other forms of life on the planet and the planet as such). These and many others pertain to our conduct, which is influenced by our way of thinking.

Furthermore, our nature—and Tropos in general—yields diversity. We cannot expect everyone to be a sage. Just as we cannot turn every person into a painter, a nurse, an engineer, an elite athlete, and so on. Each individual has a unique set of skills. By letting them cultivate those skills we are better off collectively. Why? Because we can then learn more about the human condition. If everyone I meet is like me, I am not discovering something new: I develop tunnel vision, which makes me less wise by obscuring from my view the diversity of the world around me. But if one is a pianist, another a fashionista, a third an accountant, etc. I gain insight into perspectives and modes of expression I would otherwise be oblivious to. This makes me more aware of what is around me and conditions me to think that there may be more. Again, we are not omniscient and our diversity helps us broaden our horizons. We do it together, as societies, as cultures, and as a species.

This extends the critique I have for the exaltation of the sage and why I prefer the disposition of philosophy (as “friend of wisdom”). For instance, I want the musician to give me what I cannot produce myself—music—and ask from them to do it as best they can. One can learn the basics of philosophy, such as the practical comments I make, and be a better version of themselves in what they do.

Furthermore, this is why I stylistically prefer polytheism as a source for metaphors. It works with multifacetedness and diversity at the outset, even though, fundamentally, the many are one as I elaborated on earlier. With the metaphors polytheism gives me, I can tell how one is closer to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, another to Hephaestus, god of crafts, and so on. And each person can be many of those archetypes, such as by aspiring to wisdom while also practising some art. Same for phenomena, which can be summarised in the image of a deity, like Demetra for the Earth Mother we always depend on but instead of saying “I need food, water, a healthy environment, etc.” I just say “I have Demetra by my side” or something along those lines. The many gods/archetypes, just like the many talents of humans and the multitude of phenomena, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They all partake of pattern.

[ORIGINAL]
Thirty spokes unite around the nave;
From their not-being (loss of their individuality)
Arises the utility of the wheel.
Mold clay into a vessel;
From its not-being (in the vessel's hollow)
Arises the utility of the vessel.
Cut out doors and windows in the house (-wall),
From their not-being (empty space) arises the utility
of the house.
Therefore by the existence of things we profit.
And by the non-existence of things we are served.

This is an interesting section. It basically tells us that we do not always need something to be there for us to benefit from it. Sometimes absence is better than presence. This is like the “less is more” we often hear about, which I consider a valuable rule of thumb.

Notice the “rule of thumb”. This is not a one-size-fits-all directive. We need to consider the specifics of the case to determine if presence or absence is necessary. Again, we need the notion of the “constitution of the case”. Without knowing the factors in their interplay, we cannot apply the rule reliably. Without knowledge of the case, we are likely to commit an error in judgement.

This passage can also be read in light of what I discussed above on the matter of hubris and avoiding exaggerations. No need to repeat it here.

A final point on “less is more” from my experience with designing colour schemes, themes, and a typeface. In any given context, if everything is emphasised nothing will stand out: the emphasis of one cancels out the emphasis of the other. In such a scenario, the most emphatic is that which has no emphasis, because it stands out through the absence of that attribute. Similarly, to emphasise the emphasis is to exaggerate, to burden the user with needless extras. We can think of those as having more of something, even though it is not needed. And, as with the difference between remedy and poison, having too much of something is deleterious.

Austerity and distractions

Continuing from: https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/5.

[ORIGINAL]
The five colors blind the eyes of man;
The five musical notes deafen the ears of man;
The five flavors dull the taste of man;
Horse-racing, hunting and chasing madden the minds of man;
Rare, valuable goods keep their owners awake at night.
Therefore the Sage:
Provides for the belly and not the eye.
Hence, he rejects the one and accepts the other.

I think this section is a continuation of what I covered in the previous section about doing things in moderation. The wise approach is to get enough to sustain ourselves, but not more that we grow addicted to it.

All the extreme experiences evoke strong reactions, which affect our behaviour. Consider a favourite dish. If it is too delicious, we cannot stop thinking about it. We yearn for the moment when it is time to eat it. It keeps us busy and thus detracts from other matters. Same principle for everything we become so deeply invested in that it takes over our whole life.

While food may be used figuratively in the original text, I personally do have an explicitly austere approach on the matter (and “austerity” is an accurate descriptor of my life and what I represent). It comes down to simplicity. What we eat must be bland. Not too oily, not too salty, not too spicy, not too sweet, etc. Basic ingredients and generic techniques (e.g. only boil vegetables if necessary). Boring and uneventful food keeps us healthy without distracting us from other activities. Why? Because it is boring and we do not want to think about it any further. Whereas delicious food keeps calling for our attention.

Same principle for music. If we listen to loud songs all day, silence will disturb us. Meditation will be troublesome. Quietude will feel eerie. There is a time for art and a time for philosophy; a time for fun and a time for contemplation. We must slow things down and let the moment have our undivided attention.

In short, all thrilling experiences have to be kept in check as they are the most likely to lead us astray, far away from a moderate lifestyle.

[ORIGINAL]
"Favor and disgrace cause one dismay;
What we value and what we fear are within our Self."
What does this mean:
"Favor and disgrace cause one dismay?"
Those who receive a favor from above
Are dismayed when they receive it,
And dismayed when they lose it.
What does this mean:
"What we value and what we fear are within our Self?"
We have fears because we have a self.
When we do not regard that self as self,
What have we to fear?
Therefore he who values the world as his self
May then be entrusted with the government of the world;
And he who loves the world as his self -
The world may then be entrusted to his care.

I believe this passage is another take on the theme of ownership. If we cling on to our self, if we think that what we have is too precious and nothing should ever change it or take it away from us, then we dread losing it. We fear as we know deep down that it is not truly ours to begin with. That which we consider precious makes us its servant: we do everything in our power to keep it. In this sense, it is not having a self that is the problem, but the clinginess associated with this phenomenon.

Insofar as selfhood is concerned, the feeling of preciousness develops into what I call the “private cult of personality”. We take our self too seriously, we value our self too much. This cult forces us into a mode of conduct where everything we do is biased in favour of our glorified personality. Instead of remaining open to new possibilities, we delineate a comfort zone and make it our habitat. It is not truly comfortable though. It merely helps sustain the illusion that our prized self will remain constant.

We then have the “therefore” part of the origina text to contend with. The salient point is that one who is fearless, in the way I just described of not being afraid to lose their self, is the best candidate to not act out of prejudice and is thus the best option to consider the propriety of a given act. However, such a person does not necessarily have what it takes to govern the world. If one has neglected parts of their humanity, if they have not experienced the diversity of humankind, they may suffer from tunnel vision and thus lack perspective on what the needs of the people are.

More broadly, I am sceptical of tiny minorities ruling over everybody else: they are not omniscient and cannot possibly design a one-size-fits-all policy while respecting the underlying diversity. I am especially sceptical if such minority is framed as an intelligentsia, because the average intellectual is a person that has book smart but no street smart. In other words, they have not experienced the multitude of the world and have a very distorted view of how things are.

While I get the point that in ideal terms only the incorruptible sage can govern incorruptibly, I disagree on practical grounds. If we have gods among humans, they will be more competent than everybody else. Sure! Good luck finding a single one to do the job!

As with all matters, politics needs to be done in moderation. Not absolute control. Not absolute lawlessness (even anarchy needs law and some order, starting with a collective understanding of their basic moral code). Do not let the ideal give you a false sense of security though, as it is not what we get.

[ORIGINAL]
Looked at, but cannot be seen -
That is called the Invisible (yi).
Listened to, but cannot be heard -
That is called the Inaudible (hsi).
Grasped at, but cannot be touched -
That is called the Intangible (wei).
These three elude our inquiries
And hence blend and become One.
Not by its rising, is there light,

Perhaps the translation is not helping my cause here, though I feel this snippet is about method. If we employ the wrong instrument, we will reach false conclusions. The implication is that what we count as knowledge may itself be the product of an inappropriate method. Perhaps it is not absolutely wrong, though it still is not good enough or, to put it differently, remains flawed to a noticeable degree. In different terms, it is open to review.

This insight connects to the aforementioned private cult of personality. An incorrect method gives rise to a misplaced impression of self-importance. As we have unconditional faith in the method, we take its findings as the single source of truth which inevitably feeds into our cockiness; and cockiness begets hubris, as discussed earlier.

The role of the sage

Continuing from: https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/6.

[ORIGINAL]
Nor by its sinking, is there darkness.
Unceasing, continuous,
It cannot be defined,
And reverts again to the realm of nothingness.
That is why it is called the Form of the Formless,
The Image of Nothingness.
That is why it is called the Elusive:
Meet it and you do not see its face;
Follow it and you do not see its back.

This passage is another comment on the Tao/Being. Paradoxes, such as following but not seeing its back, are used to convey the meaning I already covered in the opening section. No need to repeat it here.

As humans, our terminus is Tropos. We cannot escape it. Even in speaking of Being, we give it a name—“Being”—yet maintain that it is nameless. We assign an attribute to it, else a description, by holding that Being is “that which is most abstract” and “that which is not describable”. In other words, we give it Tropos while saying that it has none. We assign to it the mode of being the most abstract and/or the indescribable. There is no other way for us to communicate. The alternative is to remain silent. Though even then we grasp it in our mind through Tropos.

Note here that “nothingness” is not absolute. As I explained previously, Being, and everything predicated it on it as Tropos, is the only possibility. There can be no nothingness, strictly speaking.

[ORIGINAL]
The wise ones of old had subtle wisdom and depth of understanding,
So profound that they could not be understood.
And because they could not be understood,
Perforce must they be so described:
Cautious, like crossing a wintry stream,
Irresolute, like one fearing danger all around,
Grave, like one acting as guest,
Self-effacing, like ice beginning to melt,
Genuine, like a piece of undressed wood,
Open-minded, like a valley,
And mixing freely, like murky water.

While this part starts by alluding to the sages of old, I believe the real meaning is the paradoxical indescribable nature of the most profound. This continues the theme of Tao/Being. For humans though, who as humans necessarily have Tropos, it is always possible to describe and render intelligible that which they say.

The sage may be likened to an eagle: a bird that flies higher than all other birds. Yet the eagle can descend to the lower altitudes to meet the others. Because the sage is aware of non-ownership, as I explained in the previous sections, they have no reason to think that those heights are their exclusivity. The sage can help others to at least imagine what it is like to be up there.

Here allow me to introduce the concept of the “Promethean Ideal” that I have inferred based on the myth of Prometheus. This is a titan, basically a god, who brought knowhow to humanity. The “knowhow” is encapsulated in the myth as the art of using fire. Equipped with their newfound knowledge, humans could do more things than was ever possible before. Thanks to Prometheus’ gift, they could take the next step in becoming more sophisticated. The ideal then is for us to learn from Prometheus so that we always try to share knowhow and knowledge in general. We must try to help humanity become better: to be more god-like, so to speak. Though we know that people are imperfect and all knowledge available to them can be used malevolently. Prometheus understands this but still foresees a world where humanity moves from a primitive to a more advanced understanding of itself and the world at-large.

Why would we do that? Why not take advantage of knowhow to pursue our own ends? Because a god, who is a higher being, has shown us that through sharing we collectively improve our condition; a god has shown us not to worry about ownership: the knowhow of fire is not mine or yours, but is available to everybody.

I think the sage and generally the person who has a disposition of altruism is this Promethean figure in practice. They can give the rest of us what we lack and they can show us how to make best use of it by embodying it themselves. Eventually, we will learn and move closer to wisdom. And, as with Prometheus, this involves personal sacrifice which is about letting go of the precious self we think we can hold onto forever.

[ORIGINAL]
Who can find repose in a muddy world?
By lying still, it becomes clear.
Who can maintain his calm for long?
By activity, it comes back to life.
He who embraces this Tao
Guards against being over-full.
Because he guards against being over-full,
He is beyond wearing out and renewal.
Attain the utmost in Passivity,
Hold firm to the basis of Quietude.
The myriad things take shape and rise to activity,
But I watch them fall back to their repose.
Like vegetation that luxuriantly grows
But returns to the root (soil) from which it springs.
To return to the root is Repose;

To me this section starts with the recognition that the domain of Tropos is one of incessant change: transfiguration on a cosmic scale. Something comes, something goes, something deforms, something else forms. There is no creation from nothing or in nothing, and there is no transition to nothing. What is, is. Ever-present, ever-lasting. It is the mode of being that changes.

In this sense, the common in the multitude of this state of flux is motion or reform or transition. The very pattern of change is constant in itself: it remains change and never becomes non-change. By continuing with the pattern seeking, we identify such constants, which form an abstract structure with which we make sense of the cosmos.

The cosmos has “logos”, which is the Greek word for “rate”, “ratio”, “reason” (as reasonable and as a cause), and “speech”, else “language”. These concepts all describe the domain of Tropos: whatever happens has Logos built into it. It is immanent. Logos, then, is this “pattern as such” that I alluded to earlier, an alias for Being.

You may think that rate, ratio, causality are obvious. But what about language? Language is immanent as well. In its most basic form, language describes a feedback loop: something happens and something else occurs in response to it. It is binary. The concatenation of such bits, per computer science parlance, is what contributes to the interplay of factors in any given constitution of the case. We can think of a case as a network of communication channels which yields specific meanings, else forms and modality. It is how a system can have phenomena that are specific to its scope of application and not to the more particular domain of each of its factors in isolation: the given bits engender different meanings through their exact combinations or sequences.

Logos is constant then. We then realise that there is no difference between the two extremes of the immovable world that Parmenides talked about and the ever-changing one that Heraclitus described (based on the surviving fragments we have, anyway). The two sages were elaborating on different facets of a singular reality. They were simply operating at different scopes of application, which I am confident they understood all too well.

Couched in those terms, what the text above is telling us is that the sage can discern both (i) the transfigurable nature of things, such as by admitting to non-ownership, and the (ii) universal magnitudes.

For our everyday life, the insight is that we will stress out and become ineffective if we are afraid of losing what we have. We do not really have anything that is ours in an inalienable way. Circumstances can give us wealth and take it away from us. We may be healthy or sickly. Our conception of self depends on how our body works and what our environment is (points I have already explained in the previous sections). We escape from the fear of losing things when we admit that transfiguration is ceaseless. We then conduct ourselves in moderation, both for the so-called “good times” and the “bad” ones. It it thus possible to be tranquil, undisturbed by the fluctuations in the world, because we have seen beyond the transfigurable into the abstract structure—the constants—of the cosmos: Logos. Hence, with wisdom we are, in the words of the translated text, “beyond wearing out and renewal”.

On fearlessness and presence

Continuing from: https://www.wendangwang.com/doc/e9374217c57a304ef32b37fc1fa3883371076c9e/7.

[ORIGINAL]
It is called going back to one's Destiny.
Going back to one's Destiny is to find the Eternal Law.
To know the Eternal Law is Enlightenment.
And not to know the Eternal Law
Is to court disaster.
He who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant;
Being tolerant, he is impartial;
Being impartial, he is kingly;
Being kingly, he is in accord with Nature;
Being in accord with Nature, he is in accord with Tao;
Being in accord with Tao, he is eternal,
And his whole life is preserved from harm.

This is a direct continuation of what I explained about finding the universal in Logos. We are able to look beyond the particulars of incessant change as we discern the abstract structure in the world. We find enlightenment in the recognition that there are constants amid the cosmic transfiguration. Tropos is a constant, Logos is constant. We thus refrain from assigning disproportionate value to the ephemeral, to those items that undergo change. This makes us fearless, because we do not cling on to anything and, therefore, have no worry of losing something which never was truly ours anyway. The practical benefit is ataraxia, the state of tranquillity in which we do not get disturbed about either the addition or subtraction of presences from our life. We learn to live in the moment, not holding on to the past, not longing for the future. We are free from suffering; suffering caused by the wrong perspective.

Here I should comment on the point of living in accordance with nature. I agree with the salient point, though we must be careful with our biases. Sometimes we will have a dogmatic view of what is and what is not natural. We will be using “nature” as a pretext for—and justification of—our own prejudices. The key then, is to remain honest about our disposition. When we find that we are strongly attached to something, we need to remain mindful of non-ownership. When we fiercely disagree with another person, we ought to mutually take a step back in acknowledging the fact we are not omniscient. And so on. We do make mistakes and are inherently fallible. What saves us from ruin is the commitment to a balanced lifestyle. We avoid the extremes, we guard ourselves against hubris, and we proceed with a spirit of sincerity and compassion.

[ NOTE 2026-09-26: On 2025-03-18 I wrote about the Stoic harmony with nature which is relevant to the above paragraph. ]

Enlightenment in our day-to-day life is to be able to escape from the powerful grip of our ego. To recognise that the self is not genuinely ours and that we remain a presence in the transfigurable cosmos. We are, in simple terms, at our best when we are humble and our behaviour is not driven by insecurities.

[ORIGINAL]
Of the best rulers
The people (only) know that they exist;
The next best the love and praise;
The next they fear;
And the next they revile.
When they do not command the people's faith,
Some will lose faith in them,
And then they resort to oaths!
But (of the best) when their task is accomplished,
their work done,
The people all remark, "We have done it ourselves."

Maybe the translation is not helping me here, but I think this passage speaks about the lack of perspective. How in the absence of wisdom we find substitutes to value and how those lead us astray. It continues below, so I comment on both together:

[ORIGINAL]
On the decline of the great Tao,
The doctrine of "humanity" and "justice" arose.
When knowledge and cleverness appeared,
Great hypocrisy followed in its wake.
When the six relationships no longer lived at peace,
There was (praise of) "kind parents" and "filial sons."
When a country fell into chaos and misrule,
There was (praise of) "loyal ministers."

I think this part juxtaposes an ideal world with the one we have to argue how we are far from Tao/Being and how this state of affairs leads us to maintain the wrong view of things. To put it in plain terms, we move away from nature and we lose sense of the basic things in life.

Perhaps it is counter-productive to argue against notions such as humanity and justice, because as humans we cannot be apolitical. For as long as we have to manage interpersonal affairs, we will have politics; politics in the basic sense of a public sphere, else the presence of—and concern for—the commons.

By “apolitical”, I do not mean basic activities like not voting for a party or not reading the news. Those we can afford. But even when we do not participate in the political process, we live in an instituted reality. Our life is framed by legal-cultural arrangements. There are rules which define roles and roles delimit the set of expectations on what is and is not applicable or acceptable behaviour in the given context. There are many people who do not care about politics, yet their intersubjective experience is underpinned by politics. They are not apolitical beings operating in an apolitical context, strictly speaking.

Maybe then, we need a more practical example to realise how far we have deviated from nature. Consider how modern culture basically everywhere values material possessions to an extreme. Contrary to the insight of non-ownership, we have a dogma of ownership. We judge other people on the basis of how much they appear to have. The more, the better. Such is the principle. It is a value system where the actual person does not matter as a human being with talents and sensitivities. What counts is the appearance of affluence, the pretence of ownership. I write “pretence” because even the richest person owns nothing. Everything is alienable. So it is a pretence, a lie, a delusion, a shadow play at the social level.

People who only care about conforming with this hypocrisy have the wrong perspective. In other humans they only see facilitators or antagonists on the path to showing off. With so-called “social media”, even private affairs are commodified as a medium of exchange that grants one short-term validation. Validation of this sort is reduced to the shared belief that they are owning “stuff”. This “stuff” can be a car, a house, a fancy job title, the positive opinion of others, et cetera.

This society values everything that is hard and fast, big and loud. It all needs to be cranked up to the maximum. There is no nuance, no subtlety. Think about paintings, for example. I hear people remark on a naturalist landscape how it does not have “intense colours”. There is nothing wrong with more saturation per se. But if one is insensitive to more subtle hues, we already sense how they cannot appreciate the finer experiences in life: a sunset by the beach, birds chirping on the mountains, a walk in the forest…

When all we see in other people is a means to an end, we cannot possibly have a better view of non-human life forms. We treat them as lesser than us. Humanity views the planet as an expendable resource and is destroying it in the process. There are those who understand, but the vast majority are not willing to change their lifestyle even while preaching about its merits.

The point is that we lack perspective. We have a set of values that glorifies ownership: we thus do not recognise the cosmic truth of non-ownership. We believe we are better than other forms of life: we do not admit that we are just as transfigurable, just as interdependent and coexistent. We want everything to be extreme: we lose sight of the virtuous middle ground and commit hubris in the process. Our civilisation is an intricate superstructure built on top of misunderstandings about how things stand in the world.

[ORIGINAL]
Banish wisdom, discard knowledge,
And the people shall profit a hundredfold;
Banish "humanity," discard "justice,"

This is the conclusion which continues from the aforementioned. Again, I would not dwell on the concepts of “humanity” and “justice”. The gist is that we must remain open to the truth. Lies may give us immediate profit, but all of it is an illusion in the end.

The mode of truth-seeking leads us to the rejection of modern values. We will no longer seek validation through possessions. One does not need to be validated for being. We will stop obsessing about ownership and not judge ourselves on the basis of such a metric. Instead, we will remain tranquil and be freed from the burden of clinging on to stuff that can never be truly owned. In short, we will have a more balanced disposition which will prepare us to lead simpler and more peaceful lives.

As I noted before, not everyone will become a sage. Humans are diverse and each individual has a unique set of talents. An ideal state where we all live in ataraxia will not happen. We should at least aspire to our highest. Try to be more god-like in our disposition, more compassionate and understanding, more patient, more tolerant, and less egoistic. We will seek to be friends of wisdom, even though we understand it is not possible to ever become wisdom incarnate. In doing so, we will avoid distractions.