| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: of it.
She awoke next morning at seven, as usual, started up wildly,
looked around, and dropped back. Nothing to get up for. The
knowledge did not fill her with a rush of relief. She would have
her breakfast in bed. She telephoned for it, languidly. But
when it came she got up and ate it from the table, after all.
That morning she found a fairly comfortable room, more within her
means, on the North Side in the boardinghouse district. She
unpacked and hung up her clothes and drifted downtown again,
idly. It was noon when she came to the corner of State and
Madison Streets. It was a maelstrom that caught her up, and
One Basket |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: enduring life shall long be seen.
60. 1. Governing a great state is like cooking small fish.
2. Let the kingdom be governed according to the Tao, and the manes of
the departed will not manifest their spiritual energy. It is not that
those manes have not that spiritual energy, but it will not be
employed to hurt men. It is not that it could not hurt men, but
neither does the ruling sage hurt them.
3. When these two do not injuriously affect each other, their good
influences converge in the virtue (of the Tao).
61. 1. What makes a great state is its being (like) a low-lying, down-
flowing (stream);--it becomes the centre to which tend (all the small
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: they go plunging along like they was on stilts, and
they rock the man that is on them pretty violent and
churn up his dinner considerable, I bet you, but they
make noble good time, and a camel ain't nowheres with
them for speed.
The caravan camped, during the middle part of the
day, and then started again about the middle of the
afternoon. Before long the sun begun to look very
curious. First it kind of turned to brass, and then to
copper, and after that it begun to look like a blood-
red ball, and the air got hot and close, and pretty soon
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