ippuku abisensei🍵🐔👘

Lately, I’ve been on a little bit of a Daoist literature kick with my partner.

Last week, we went out for a semi-date night to our local Barnes & Noble and found a few gems hidden in amongst the bargain books. But the best one was super amazing: an illustrated, bilingual edition of the Tao Te Ching. To sweeten it even more it was traditionally bound in the accordion page/string binding format. Amber Books freaking hit this one out of the park. Of course we bought it.

Scott was the first to tear into it because he a) can read Classical Chinese somewhat and b) couldn’t wait to read it first. He blew through that thing in one night.

I, on the other hand, am taking my time with it. I haven’t read as much about the world of Daoism as Scott has, so I’m taking it baby steps at a time. I also can’t read Classical Chinese so if I wanted to compare the text vs translation I’d need some help from him.

So I’ve been reading about ten or so chapters of this thing a day, and a lot of it is either really interesting or really baffling. Or both. I’ll show you what I mean.

Chapter 36 is about the “Maintaining the Mystery of the Dao”.

Yes it is infinite, yes humans cannot ever fully understand or master it. It is deep.

Everything is cyclical, strong to weak, weak to strong, etc.

Which all made sense until I got to the last two lines:

“A fish cannot leave the water

The State’s most effective tool should not be revealed to the people”.

EXCUSE ME WHAT?!?

These two lines made no fucking sense. Why would anyone on earth add that? Was this just something that laid around half-written for an awhile and then Lao Tsu decided he was gonna finish it at last? Did homie have a deadline or something?

So Scott and I teamed up to find out.

We looked online and Scott compared translations. We went to local bookstores and checked other translations of this chapter as well, and didn’t really find a whole lot.

We did learn that Ursula K. Le Guin published her own translation of the Tao Te Ching and NEARLY COMPLETELY LEFT THIS PART OF CHAPTER 36 OUT BECAUSE SHE SIMPLY DIDNT LIKE IT. Excuse me what? I wasn’t aware that she was a Classical Chinese scholar? Seems pretty egotistical to just leave parts out of a translation because it doesn’t vibe with the rest of the text. Anyways….

After agonizing over this for a few days, we came to the conclusion that what was meant by those last two lines was that it is possible to know too much. We all “swim” around in our own little bubbles of community and knowledge. If a fish were to leave its pond, it would die. If a human knew too much it would drive them crazy and they might die. Thus, according to this dead Chinese person who wrote the Tao Te Ching thousands of years ago – It is best for the State to not reveal too much, lest people go crazy and destabilize everything. Balance. Cyclical balance.

Here’s where the text really spoke to me though. It’s well known at this point that I’ve been struggling with anxiety and my mental health recently. And it was honestly a light bulb moment for me when I realized that yes, knowing too much about everything all of the time really can kill you. The human mind was not meant to withstand the information overload of social media and being always online. We all are meant to just be swimming around in our own little ponds going about life. Sometimes, the secrets of the deep need to stay in the deep so that people (me) won’t lose their minds and die.

It was nice to have Lao Tsu back me up on my decision to step away from the fountain of perpetual knowledge and suffering.

Anyways, what do you think? You ever read the Tao Te Ching? Does anyone have a Classical Chinese dictionary we can borrow? Let me know!