We start with a parable about being at peace with reality and not overreacting. Then there's chapter 73 of the Tao Te Ching that says that the Tao will ultimately bring everything along in its cosmic net. In other words, nature ensures that things are brought to balance in the end. The question is, will we be around to see the righting of injustice? As Bob Marley said, it is our duty to fight the Armaggedeon THIS TRIP. That is, don't wait for a reincarnated existence or heaven to bring about a just world. Chapter 73 calls for a quiet, patient courage that does not give up hope. And we are holding on to the idea that the world isn't hopeless, even as the super wealthy and powerful have so far succeeded in serving up children to the Moloch, so far without much of a reckoning. Part of the solution, it seems, is to call upon all our friends who believe in goodness truth and beauty to NOT give up hope, even during our precarious times.

Content warning: we discuss SA and violence and other wretchedness.

The similarities and differences between the perspectives of Aristotle and Lao Tzu on the nature of happiness and how this relates to the ways in which we might navigate our precarious times. Inspired by Tao Te Ching chapter 72. We also spend some time discussing how this is all related to the Zen parable about the Master of Tea Ceremonies and a Ronin.

Drawing from Tao Te Ching 71, we discuss the ways in which dogmatism can lead to madness but recognizing truths, even the truth that we do not know things with certainty, can bring us to a place of sanity. We talk about a poet named Theodore Beza who traded in his love of classical poetry and creating new versions of it himself to concocting a contorted and arguably monstrous dogmatism known as hyper-Calvinism (and the weird dogma of supralapsarianism). If you are in need of letting go of unhealthy ideologies and allegiances, this may be just the episode for you.