The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
And so starts the famous book of ancient Chinese wisdom, the Tao-Te-Ching, one of my all-time favorites. Lao Tzu was onto something. I think Socrates would have been proud.
What does it mean that Tao cannot be told? Quite simply this: Tao, “the Way,” the ultimate Truth of the universe, God, or whatever pathetically inadequate name we may put to eternally evolving Reality, the simple truth is, It cannot be contained in words.
And so, I start my website with this caution: Please, whatever you do, DO NOT take the musings on the nature of reality put forth on this site too seriously. The best advice I could ever give to any intelligent being is to never be certain of anything.
Many take agnosticism as a stance of cowardice. My position is quite the contrary. I believe, as Socrates, that uncertainty is the ultimate wisdom. My goal with this site, as all my work, is to blow open ever deeper chasms of truth to explore, that perhaps in the depths we may discover something useful.
Live the questions, love the play, be always humble to be humbled, and may critical thinking be your ultimate tool.
While it is sometimes pragmatic to take a position, it is always most practical of all to, ultimately, take the position of no-position. In this spirit of detachment from any limiting form, then, whatever comes our way we can make use of it, and hopefully, move as nimbly and unobstructedly toward the highest conception of good we can conceive at any given moment.
Finally, I do not even know if I am the hero or the villain of the story. In ever-evolving reality, I accept that I may be both in the end, for often today’s revolution, is tomorrow’s tyranny. I simply hope that in the ultimate spiral toward enriching complexity and deeper contentedness, me, my humble musings, and whimsical projects may be of some use to someone somewhere somehow. If not, well, at least I had fun 😛
P.S. Just to be sure I’m understood, I will climb right back out of my grave and give anyone a piece of my zombie mind if they start calling themselves Arelians or waging wars in my name. Don’t do that shit. Be your own person. You’re embarrassing both of us. Farreal tho. Peace.
P.S.S. Also furreal, this is the most important point I could ever hope to make. If you stop thinking for yourself, you get trapped in out-moded ideas and ways of being. There is little in the world as destructive as is getting caught in ways of interpreting and interacting with reality that don’t serve the highest good. Soooo yeah. I don’t say it often. But superrr important. Learn to trust only reality as the highest authority, always be willing and eager to distrust even your most basic assumptions. Aiight. Peaceeee
Jordan Arel 