Humility washes away illusion from the mind, moderation prevents motivational energy from being smothered or drowned, and compassion allows one to prioritize living in accord with his instinctive nature rather than to cling egocentrically to life as he wishes it were.

If ever you feel cornered between a rock and a hard place, stuck in a situation in which you can find no escape save for choosing that which you view as the least of all evils, then I implore you to do as Lao-tzu does here: enter into an inner dialogue with your potential self. I mean this literally. Just as one might, at his wits end, kneel at the edge of his bed and pray for answers, so should you turn your questions inward. Ask, without reservation and with a willingness to accept the answer no matter how terrible it may sound to you—and then wait. You’ll find that the wisdom to see through even the most dire of straights hides within you, that the key to unlock your latent potential for self-transformation is not found in externals but in your own instincts—in the hands of the ancient Child Archetype within. Thus the discourse between Lao-tzu and his own potential begins

Only someone such as this wise traveler can be simultaneously at peace and yet compassionate for others. His root to the earth is what allows for this. Others who are unrooted will become pulled in one direction or the other: they will become bitter and resentful for their self-sacrifice in pursuit of their compassion, or else they will become jaded and lose the capacity for compassion altogether. They do not possess a root by which to maintain their footing on their moral foundations, and so when life’s outcomes are aside from their desires and expectations, they will fall, unable to reconstitute their world-models.

The Child Archetype—that instinct toward growth, discovery, and development—asks us to define what it is that exists outside this necessary conceptual framework of opposition. It is the Tao source of life, the objective reality, Nature, the nominal, the transcendent universe; yet those answers only beg the question, “What do we even mean by those things?”

Chapter Twenty-Four describes the tragedy that Chapter Twenty-Three warns against: do not become like an overly-filled cup, too full of your preconceived notions to receive any wisdom that is not already your own. Indeed, such a path can lead only to disaster—and you’ll never see it coming, for you’ll have blinded yourself to everything you haven’t already seen.

I would never at any time describe Taoism as "clear" or "cut-and-dry," but Chapter Twenty-Three comes closer than any other so far at consolidating the Taoist principles in a single comprehensible poem. If you haven't checked out the Meditations: Tao Te Ching series thus far, this is a great chapter to start on.

More Taoist origins of the Zen Buddhist adage, "Empty your cup" in today's Meditations: Tao Te Ching Chapter Twenty-Two.

But what do abstractions matter? They aren’t really real.” If this is your position, only you can save yourself from the nihilistic abyss in which all human action and relation has been reduced to games of power.

More merging of Nietzsche and Lao-tzu today in Meditations: Tao Te Ching Chapter Twenty.

What does it mean to "be yourself?" Surely not to give in to every impulse and indulgence; but likewise it cannot be to yoke yourself for the sake of society (elsewise we make slaves of us all). What, then?

Taoism through the lens of some of Friedrich Nietzsche's earliest ideas. I'm not sure if I made the concepts clearer or more obscure.

“this is a warning”
—Tao Te Ching Chapter Seventeen

Separate the conscious mind from its unconscious impulses and—let them go. Observe your feelings and name the emotions. Give them form, understand them, and then make them irrelevant through self-acceptance. With practice, this tolerance can expand from yourself onto someone else, then to others in general, and then perhaps you can become able to bear listening to ideas and people whom previously you placed beneath contempt, as if you were so much better than them, as if you too are not an animal. And doing all this, your wisdom can expand beyond the borders of your current limitations. You can see your errors and the treasures hidden in plain sight. You can come closer to aligning yourself with an objective reality. You will touch upon something greater than yourself.

Peace of mind and excellence in action seem to be intrinsically tied to our biology (or out "nature" if you'll accept the term). While useful across time, consciousness is slow and often falsely presumptive. In the moment, our animal instincts are that which perform without distraction, doubt, or self-consciousness. Perhaps it is a mistake of modernity to look down on the perspectives of those who came before us.

Arrogance and obsession (both things I have been and am likely to be guilty of in the future) are destructive errors known by many names. Often, I call them "Presupposition of Correctness" and "Tunnel Vision" respectively, but whatever the name, both of them prevent us from paying attention to what actually happens or what other people actually say. Perhaps one means of absolving oneself from these vices is through acceptance of imperfection, of ignorance, that there is always something better in front of you if you were only willing to see it.

The faculty of desire purports to aim at securing what you want, while aversion purports to shield you from what you don’t. If you fail in your desire, you are unfortunate, if you experience what you would rather avoid you are unhappy. . . . If you desire something outside your control, you are bound to be disappointed.
—Epictetus. Enchiridion; Discourses and Selected Writings

More on inclusivity and exclusivity in Chapter Twelve of the Tao Te Ching. This topic might seem obscure, but I believe it is pertinent to today's social discourse. If you don't understand what your purported values actually are, then you are doomed to serve as a slave to purposes apart from your own.

We hear an awful lot about the value of inclusion, but it is arguable that many good things come from exclusion. Your loved ones are special because they are not everyone else. Your hard work in one pursuit sets you apart from others who specialize differently. To be yourself at all means that you aren't someone else. This is what is discussed in the Tao Te Ching Chapter Eleven.

When my friends and I were teenagers, whether we were playing a game or practicing martial arts, we often noticed moments during which time seemed to evaporate. We called it, "being in the zone," for lack of more sophisticated language, because we always performed our best during those brief flashes that we could hardly remember even seconds after they occurred.

These moments are the topic of Chapter Ten of the Tao Te Ching: now I understand them to be the temporary fusion of all aspects of the self.

I believe each individual has a responsibility to himself to pursue his own dream. Note that I say "pursue" and not "achieve." One can die happy if he has no regrets, but to have no regrets, one must place his aim on the Way and not on the End. So forewarns Chapter Eight of the Tao Te Ching.