on lao tzu ch. 17

DARK AND SILENT (soliloquy)

You’re always dragging my ass out into these bright shiny places you love so much.

Don’t you get it? Truth travels in the dark as well as in the light.

And this noise, this shouting out your various ecstasies. . .

Missing out on silence isn’t my idea of a good time.

And just where, may I ask, did you acquire the need to find spotlights everywhere and to dance in them?

Quiet conversation seems to whisper, in your ear, only of loss; stir your mind’s most profound fears, as though your soul were fragile, ephemeral, about to head for the black holes; to disappear forever.

Don’t you get it? Truth, joy, faith and hope also whisper in the dark; also dwell in the silent places you’re determined to avoid.

The light is lost in itself without darkness, and without them both, we cannot see.

Also, noise and silence need one another, just like I need you and you, I believe and hope, need me.

- don brennan Tao, Ch. 17.