the new

Oh the shiny things! How they capture my attention. A new foamed milk coffee? Why yes, I must try. A new book which is brighter and crisper than last week’s new book? Lovely.

I’m always so pleased to visit a village or town for the first time, to walk a new beach, climb an unknown cliff.

The Tao Te Ching reminds us that we don’t have to travel to experience the world, and we need not seek the novel to enrich our lives. Lao Tzu suggests that we each be appreciative of what’s in front of us, of what is.

If we don’t love what we have, why would we love what we might have tomorrow? Dissatisfaction is never quenched by quaffing ever newer vintages.

Yet Tao offers ‘the ten thousand things’, and I, for one, would like to know some of them.

Tao is only ‘limited’ by tzu-jan, and as things will be, they will be – and I am entranced!