Tao Te Ching XVIII

When the great way falls into disuse, there are benevolence and rectitude.

When cleverness emerges, there is great hypocrisy.

When the six relations are at variance, there are filial children.

When the state is benighted, there are loyal ministers.

When immorality increases, there are pious leaders.

When education becomes readily available, there is vast stupidity.

When corruption is rampant, the people are efficient.

When corporations are insane, teamwork abounds.

When free speech is entrenched in the Charter, when there are rights and freedoms,

there are clichés and tyrannies.

When the arts are funded, there is pervasive mediocrity.

When opportunity is unequal, there is contentment.

When history is forgotten, there are dancing and reverie.

Morality is not a system; it’s an orientation, the way one naturally faces.  For me to tell you that your face should be my face is to attempt to turn an orientation to a system, air to solid, nature to technology.  The more faces are displayed, normalized, reproduced, and idolized, the more the people lose their souls.  This is true whether faces are proclivities or names.  The more causation is hardened, the more minds are hardened.  The way is nimble, it does not nail down ideas or relations; it does not use nails, but bubbles.  Those far from the way depend on faces projected on the heavens to tell them how to face.  They see a way as the way.  But those close to the way seek the face without a face and face that way.  Systems, moralities, ideologies, ideas, orientations, faces:  these are simply signs that systems, moralities, ideologies, ideas, orientations, and faces exist … nothing more.  Those who wish to make them something more are tyrants and vary only in the degree to which they actualize their wish.

Life is no system; life is a shadowy sign of the way.