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Comment by roeles | Hacker News Reader

There are people who easily interpret Taoism's themes such as goallessness and stories like these as idleness. I used to be one of those people. This might be in part due to the western translations of the Tao Te Ching.

Recently I found a page by Derek Ling[1], which shifted my perspective. I now think the point is closer to _balance_ than idleness. When it comes to goals, it means that you can have them... but don't expect to reach them. Goals give direction to your efforts. But in order to avoid suffering when life inadvertently gets in the way, hold them loosely.

The same goes for this story, I think. Not being useful is not going to get you anywhere, but being too useful isn't either.

An informative comparison of Tao Te Ching translations can be found here[2]. It shows how differently the same verse has been interpreted by different people.

[1] https://truetao.blogspot.com/2010/04/sage-has-no-goals.html [2] https://ttc.tasuki.org/

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Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

I think I learned more about eastern philosophy by taking a taichi class than I ever did reading about it or listening to lectures. Taichi is not Taoist but good luck finding a good instructor who never mentions it. I've never met a group of martial artists so unanimous about the idea that there are some things you cannot learn from a book or videos. Both assert that there are some things you can know that you cannot put into words.

Western psychology is coming at this from the opposite direction: Intellectualizing won't fix all of your problems. But by god are we (especially CS folks) gonna die trying.

> Western psychology is coming at this from the opposite direction: Intellectualizing won't fix all of your problems. But by god are we (especially CS folks) gonna die trying.

Most CS folks are just modern age plumbers, though, who love to think of themselves as intellectuals.

Billionaire wannabe-monopolists are bidding up our labor prices, doesn't that prove we're smarter than plumbers

No, just that plumbers are in short supply at the moment.

> I think I learned more about eastern philosophy by taking a taichi class than I ever did reading about it or listening to lectures.

Yes. Before Covid I did some lessons too. Very humbling experience when you've only intellectualized so far. When Covid hit, I did some Qi Gong in the morning and it did wonders for my meditation.

Thanks for https://ttc.tasuki.org/! I forked it and put the first 10 verses of Ursula K LeGuin's interpretation here as it was missing: https://thadk.net/sbs/#/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,jc,rh,uklg/...

You're welcome! Thanks for the reply and the expansion!

The Stoics have a reserve clause that I like that they add to there goals...

i.e if the goal is 'I will do this' then you add 'if all goes well' to the end of it, avoiding any form of attachment, giving the sense of direction but understanding that there are things outside of your control and you might just not get lucky.

I think in this sense it's good to have goals to give you the direction when you do want to do some work, but not tie your entire being to it, so that you can also just enjoy life too and sometimes that might mean not hitting a goal but that is okay too.

Inshallah.

"God willing", right?

I don't know if the original is that way, but the word was imported into Portuguese as a non-religious expression.

Yeah. I sometimes compare it to gardening. You take care of the causes, and let mother nature take care of the consequences.

As said below though, practice is an entirely different thing from intellectual understanding.

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