I
Do you get a huge rush when you realize, in the text you are composing, that the next paragraph will be your last? Is this moment thrilling to you because you are now about to see the work go through its penultimate metamorphosis, break free from the stone from which it has been carved, and leap up, still shaking off dew and swirling in its robes, to settle into its final shape? I do. I have just felt the rush, and seen the act. I am going to watch it happen to two more texts this very week.
II
Much advice is given on optimizing productivity, and I give the same advice myself. I have also said that this advice does not work for actual block. In that situation the standard advice can even exacerbate the block, because it obscures the issue at hand. You have to find the source of block and remove it, before the standard advice can apply. Mine came from Reeducation, and it made me dissociative, as was explained to me later. Things improved as I slowly dismantled Reeducation, but concentration never came easily until I realized I must pull Reeducation out by the root. After that the difficulty of things returned to what I would call a sane level.
There is one other issue that the standard, good, practical advice on concentration and productivity does not always address squarely enough, in my view: you have to make the work yours. I do not always do this, because I am thinking “practically” or “strategically.” I have graduate students who constantly try to think in terms of what would be desirable to others, and never what would be desirable to them. It does not help their work, and in the worst cases it leads directly to block. I point these things out and offer other avenues for planning, but I have been known to fall into the same trap, albeit more subtly.
III
I liked this post by Sage for the quotations from the Tao Te Ching, which are relevant to the theme of concentration. My anti-meditative, anti-rational Reeducators did not understand that concentration is not at all the same as drudgery, or as obsession, but has much more to do with presence.
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
The Tao doesn’t take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
Give evil nothing to oppose
and it will disappear by itself.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.
*
In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.
Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.
Do you want to improve the world?
It can’t be done.
The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.
If you never expect results,
You will never be disappointed.
The Master does his job
and then stops.
He understands that the universe
is forever out of control,
and that trying to dominate events
goes against the current of the Tao.
*
Have but don’t possess,
act but don’t expect.
The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
IV
I like these words, which transport me as if by magic home to Pacific headlands and away from these steamy inland plantations. I really like them as reminders to stand aside as you write and let the work speak. I note, however, that they were also an instrument of torture in Reeducation, where they exalted passivity and submission to authority.
I consider that a terrible misreading. I also suspect that some of the advice in the Tao Te Ching may have been written for imperious princes. Privileged readers, people used to giving orders and having them obeyed, may need this lesson more than, or in a different way from, those who actually need to struggle.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I like to open the Tao Te Ching to a random page to contemplate for the day. (and the I Ching too) I find it very inspiring. But I still struggle with passivity and in-action as good things. I understand it intellectually, and I believe progress is horribly overrated to the detriment of our planet and myriad cultures, but I have a hard time sitting still. I like fixing stuff.
On: “may have been written for imperious princes” – Lao Tzu was a wanderer, not tied to any location, and he only wrote down his philosophy for the people who begged him to as he was leaving a city. An important part of his ideas is that we shouldn’t try to teach them to others unless they ask to learn. No missionaries for this dude. Too cool.
Ah, that’s right – he was a wanderer! This makes it yet cooler. What I struggle with, I think, is rank popularizations of these ideas, and misapplications of them. I don’t think he means not to tend the crops. He says to “be present” and this is the point of meditation – passivity is to be associated with presence, not with absence (which in what I observe of daily life, it is often associated with).
oh, thanks for that quote. Bits of it really resonate with something I’m sorting through.