Two key insights from a key section of the Tao Te Ching ask us to question 1) Our propensity for committing ourselves to pre-established narratives and 2) Our love of language games. By throwing these fundamental tendencies into doubt, Taoism provides a radical critique of pretty much every conceivable system, not just the prominent schools of Chinese philosophy. While the passages seem a bit gnomic and mystical, they are rather a very clear articulation of a key source of human confusion and unhappiness.
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Image credit: Thanato, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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