Saturday, August 27, 2005

Stumbleupon

I installed an extension toolbar called “Stumbleupon” into Firefox this morning. It’s really good, gets you random pages on subjects you are interested in – it can be as wide or as narrow as you like. I’ve always liked the idea of randomness as there is always something in the back of my mind questioning the whole notion of randomness. And yet, for all its perfection, sometimes it seems that the whole of the cosmos is random. But then it can’t be, can it? Anyway, I just clicked on “stumbleupon” and up came this page : http://www.nokama.com/tao/index.cfm?fuseaction=chapter&ch=73

the home page came up and I randomly chose chapter 73 which was this :

Chapter 73

A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed.
A brave and calm man will always preserve life.
Of these two, which is good and which is harmful?
Some things are not favored by heaven.
Who knows why?
Even the sage is unsure of this.
The Tao of heaven does not strive, and yet it overcomes.
It does not speak, and yet is answered.
It does not ask, yet is supplied with all its needs.
It seems at ease, and yet it follows a plan.
Heaven's net casts wide.
Though its meshes are coarse, nothing slips through.

I like that line about the brave calm man. It’s a hard thing to do and to be, calm and brave.

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