I've been reading about the philosphy of Tao. There are a ton of books and a zillion interpretations; kind of like the bible, I guess. The book I'm reading right now is Wayne Dyer's take on this. His interpretation of the second verse has to do with opposites and how nothing can have an opposite without having a label to compare. No short without having a tall, for example.
I am very good at labeling things as 'good' or 'bad'. Ah, there it is already - "I am very good at..." Most of my emotional life has been based on labeling said emotions as good or bad. I judge myself in all areas as good or bad, without ever really saying I'm bad. It might be phrased as "I'm not very good at...", with the self-interpretation then being "I'm bad at...". "I had a good time." "This wasn't a very good week at work." "The weather wasn't very good yesterday." And the quantifying 'very'; so now it's not enough for things to be good, but they suddenly have to be 'very good'.
I don't know where I'm going with this and I don't have three things to say about good or bad. I just think this is very interesting and it's opened my mind a bit this morning about how I think, and how I judge myself and the world in both small and large ways. As humans we need descriptors, but using the desciptors immediately assigns value of some sort. How can I get to the point that things just 'are'? Do I need to? Well, yes and no. Acceptance is somehow important, but acceptance without desire would lead to apathy wouldn't it?
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