An Ode to Lao Tzu

 In response to my constant whining about feeling trapped in the daily rigmorale of things, which, in the final analysis, translated into the "great futility of it all", my good friend, Joe, once wrote:

All the things of the world are, as the Taoist would say, this and that. Expecting more seems to be just a "great futility of it all."  Sometimes I stand still and and think, "this is it?" And I realise, yeah, it is! And that won't change. But in that moment, I can also realise the possibility to love what is.  Even from a logical and contemplative standpoint, what else is really left? My body is always going to be doing something, there is really no true value to any particular thing beyond doing it in love now? My Grandmother seemed to be at peace with washing the dishes; I don't think she ever was a spiritually contemplative person; but without knowing it, she taught me that doing the dishes was as meaningful as saving the world from whatever; it was the world, period.  

"Being a Taoist seems a bit of an escape to me", I flung back. "When we fail to grapple with ourselves, with our surroundings, and with the world at large, the best thing is to accept. But, what then of human strife, of what good is the infinite pain borne by great Prometheus, bound to chains, and condemned to eternal damnation? Had he simply reveled in his titanic might, and vied with the gods, we would still be in the caves, chasing the illusion of light", was my answer to Joe. For, to me, a Taoist's 'this and that' was an over-simplification of the complex layers, the sandwiched Life likes to present itself in.

But, then came Covid-19. And, there in a jiffy, Life, as we know it, was stripped off its layers, and was presented to us in its crudest form, paranthesed within asleep and awake, and three meals in between. Acceptance was our only redemption, and our only escape from insanity. I wrote to Joe, saying perhaps we were all Taoists now, in our universal acceptance of the new paradigm.

Only last week however, it was through a chanced glimpse of a goatherd, sitting in my backyard, that I gained an understanding  of what Joe meant when he spoke of his grandma doing the dishes, and its relation to the great philosophy as propounded by Lao Tzu. What follows is a free verse I composed to capture that moment of epiphany.

The old goatherd

sits in the gathering

shade of  a neem tree. 

what goes through your

mind, old man?

what stray thoughts, 

impressions do you glean

while your six goats graze...

...and bleat.

there are no crossroads here,

in these wild, heirless fields

for my  vain quest

to meet the patience

of his crow-feet eyes.

he just sits and watches,

being the moment,

and the time that flows,

the ancient eyes

catch a hint of blue

and green