read the tao te ching

I found an edition from 1939 at a used book tore! I’ve been reading it on my lunch hour. I so feel taoism puts life into perspective.

I’ve read through the Tao Te Ching and I realize that it’s got a lot of ideas and principles that I don’t necessarily agree with, though I understand the need for them.

The Tao Te Ching emphasizes peace (war and conflict = bad, weapons = bad, competition = bad), tranquility, and not striving too hard to be something. For me, I’d love it if the world had no pain and suffering, but I see war and weapons as a necessary evil. I also think that competition can be beneficial. Heck, I enjoy the thrill competition. I also can’t really live my life without striving for something.
Despite all that, I do feel that the principles in the Tao Te Ching are necessary. In a way, the beliefs help to balance out against people fight too much, strive too much, and compete too much. We all know that too much of anything is a bad thing.

I actually want to compare all this with the “3 kinds of people” monologue from Team America: World Police. There are 3 kinds of people: dicks, pussies, and assholes.

The Tao Te Ching falls in the pussy category. Peace, tranquil, feminine (people who read the Tao Te Ching will know what I mean), and easy going.
Dicks are the opposite. Aggressive, invasive, striving, and… possibly cocky (lol).

The thing is, a world without dicks equates to a world without variety. Everything is peaceful, and just full of the same. Nothing happens to shake people up. Pussies will get tired of it eventually, and may even feel that something is missing.
But a world without pussies is also pretty bad. Can you imagine a world where EVERYONE is trying to screw over EVERYONE? Everyone is competing for the top, and escalation is ongoing. The world would probably be destroyed first before the dicks even realize that screwing each other doesn’t work (in more ways than one).
Now how about a world with only pussies and assholes? The pussies would just be helpless.
Or how about a world with only dicks and assholes?
In that case, dicks will soon tire with screwing the neverending stream of assholes in existence and eventually become assholes themselves. The Dark Knight movie is a nice example of what happens to a world with too many dicks and assholes. It’s bad.

See, according to the movie Team America: World Police, there will always be assholes in this world who just want to shit all over everything. Pussies can’t stop them, but dicks can. But a dick without pussy just can’t survive. And so that’s why dicks need pussies, and pussies need dicks.

So while I can’t abide by the Tao Te Ching, I realize that I need people who talk of peace, who remind me that I need to rest and relax once in a while, and who provide for me an environment where I don’t have to be on gaurd all the time. These people are important to have around.

I’ll be dealing with a lot of assholes when I get into law enforcement, and it’s the pussies that assure me I’ll be ok in the end.

P.S.
When I say dicks, pussies, and assholes, I do not intend to demean people who fall in any of these categories or speak ill of them (except assholes). Try not to take this entry too seriously. Watch Team America: World Police, it’s a good movie.

Simple, brilliant truths of nature and life.

I’ve learned more useful things from this book than just about any other I’ve read… totally worth reading, but only if you plan to keep taking it off the shelf and re-reading it throughout the years to come.