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I am a novice in the study of the Tao, but I find the wisdom clear and compelling. Today, I’m thinking about the notion that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Life has momentum, and without intentionally charting a course or direction, we can’t be upset if we end up somewhere we didn’t intend to go. It is never enough to simply lean forward without knowing why. A certain responsibility exists within each of us to better understand why we are traveling in the direction we are going.
Bas Jan Ader, a Dutch conceptual artist, perished attempting to cross the Atlantic in a small sailboat as a performance art piece. In his silent film I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1971), which he made four years before his disappearance, Ader spends three minutes twenty-one seconds crying. It’s simultaneously devastating and lovely—much like life itself. It is only through sadness that we feel happiness. It is only through disappearing that we can appear.
