Thomas's Monday Morning Contribution

Good morning all,

The Christmas season is upon us. Yes. It is a season of giving. It is also the season to experience the torment of listening to psychotically syrupy carols wherever you go- specifically shopping centres. Visiting these centres at this time of the year is an experience in itself. If one just stands and watches the passing shoppers, one truly realizes how mad humans are. We are so materialistic. Our frantic rush to shop is similar to an animal migration. We charge headlong into the fray to shop for those elusive presents. Money is not an issue. We’ll pay off the debt next year.

Our frantic rush is reminiscent of a migration of blue wildebeest crossing a crocodile infested river. The crocodiles aren’t the issue. Just get across that river. Who cares if a few wildebeest are lost along the way.

I am going to depart slightly from poetry this morning. The passage quoted will be from the Tao Te Ching, the first great classic of the Chinese school of philosophy called Taoism:


When there is Tao in the empire
The galloping steeds are turned back to fertilize
The ground by their droppings.
When there is not Tao in the empire
War horses will be reared even on the sacred
Mounds below the city walls.
No lure is greater than to possess what others
Want,
No disaster greater than not to be content with
What one has,
No presage of evil greater than that men should be
Wanting to get more.
Truly ‘He who has known the contentment
That comes simply through being content, will
Never again be otherwise than contented’.

Tootle pip.
Thomas