It seems that if I am afraid, then I am “stuck” with fear. But in fact I am chained to the fear only so long as I am trying to get away from it. On t… - Alan Watts

The perfect Way [Tao] is without difficulty, Save that it avoids picking and choosing. Only when you stop liking and disliking Will all be clearly understood. A split hair’s difference, And heaven and earth are set apart! If you want to get the plain truth, Be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong Is the sickness of the mind.1 a

Where there is to be creative action, it is quite beside the point to discuss what we should or should not do in order to be right or good. A mind that is single and sincere is not interested in being good, in conducting relations with other people so as to live up to a rule. Nor, on the other hand, is it interested in being free, in acting perversely just to prove its independence. Its interest is not in itself, but in the people and problems of which it is aware; these are “itself.” It acts, not according to the rules, but according to the circumstances of the moment, and the “well” it wishes to others is not security but liberty.

1 Goethe, West-östlicher Divan. “As long as you do not know how to die and come to life again, you are but a sorry traveler on this dark earth.