Tao Te Ching LXVIII

One who excels as a warrior does not appear formidable.

One who excels in fighting is never roused in anger.

One who excels in defeating his enemy does not join issue.

One who excels in employing others humbles himself before them.

This is known as the virtue of non-contention.

This is known as making use of the efforts of others.

This is known as matching the sublimity of heaven.

The plethora of books, advice and workshops (ensuring people like you, getting others to do what you want, managing your anger, becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be, obtaining the most from your staff, winning at work, maintaining a healthy and successful relationship, achieving optimal orgasms) miss the Daoist center.

The sage doesn’t need to manage her anger, to exercise restraint … there is nothing to manage, nothing to restrain.  The Daoist soul is as empty as the universe, and fighting—when it’s necessary—is as natural as breath.  So the sage participates in what she excels at and leaves everything else to others.  Why would she want to do a poor or mediocre or even satisfactory job when there are others who would excel?

So excelling, abstaining, and making use are attributes of heaven.

With so much of human motivation and behavior—despite the fashions of communication and civilization—little different than our simian cousins, the prime distinction (perhaps the only one) of our species is our ability—through the simian—to access and embody aspects that are not wholly simian:  to evolve ourselves from ourselves.  (We might call these aspects art, nobility, or spirit.)  Not aspects divorced from the simian, not aspects that have no claws—the Dao is no suburb, no lululemon spirituality, no sugary i-did-it-my-way, no christian heaven, no conventional cloying virtue—but rather that which reach sufficiently into the simian, into claws, and draw, living, from heaven’s dark pool nature’s knowledge:  that the human is no better than a giraffe and i am no better than a butterfly.

I may be a butterfly.