Who knew I was a Taoist all along? I thought I was a nihilist. Not the kind with black turtlenecks but another kind. I've always been a bit interested in Dao/Taoism but never studied. All of the western weirdos who were into Eastern philosophy scared me off. I didn't want to turn into one of them like Steve Jobs or that hippy book about motorcycle maintenance. I believe in living in the moment and always have. Back when I was first studying Chinese I learned all the words for moving around: directions, street signs and so on because those are immediately useful. A lot of them had the character dao in them somewhere, like dadao, boulevard or daoda, arrive.
One day, I step into the vestibule of some random temple and there is a two-story high scroll of the character 到.
As I craned my neck to see the top, I said, "ooooh, I get it! Dao! The way!"
Upon seeing this, I was enlightened.
https://hexbear.net/comment/7037635 i've been saying this
道 可 道 非 常 道
名 可 名 非 常 名
無 名 天 地 之 始
有 名 萬 物 之 母
故 常 無 欲 以 觀 其 妙
常 有 欲 以 觀 其 徼
此 兩 者 同 出 而 異 名
同 謂 之 玄
玄 之 又 玄
眾 妙 之 門
Oh come on man, if you're going to write, write but don't copy/paste. This is mixed traditional and simplified.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49965/49965-h/49965-h.htm
blame this guy then, i don't have anything set up to type characters easily on a desktop computer and this is the most easily accessible web 1.0 dao de jing i found.
Oh, I thought that was classical Chinese. The too many 之 gives it away.