Verse Nine: easy peazy

Verse Nine is about restraint. Stopping before ruining things. My high school art teacher took pains to teach us to do just enough on our pieces, not too much. Here the text reminds us that oversharpening knives makes things worse. Filling a cup too much makes a mess. Totally practical advice, no? Wealth just makes an attractive target that's hard to defend. Power leads to disaster.

Well, they had me until the wealth and titles leading to disaster part, though thanks to the evolution of a diffuse and grassroots citizen journalist movement, I suspect a lot more disaster that follows power comes to light. The mighty certainly do fall. This is not the first lesson that those of us who weren't born to wealth and power are taught, though, that we should guard against disaster - since we weren't born to these things, we strive for them. In striving school, they don't explicitly say keep your nose clean or else your fall will be swift and damaging. I suppose thinking about it that that should not have to be said. It's a kindergarten lesson - keep your hands to yourself, wait your turn, there's enough crackers for everyone.

The really interesting line of thought involves how you know when enough is enough. Recently, I fought with that dilemma preparing for two separate simulated hearings. Eventually, I felt simultaneously over and underprepared, in equal measure, so I knocked off and went for it.

I know if I run too much I'll get injured. After about 15 years as a self-identified runner, however, I am still working to figure out how much is too much & under what circumstances...

If I spoil the dog I'll wind up with an incorrigible beast. But knife sharpening? Trial preparation? Watercolor painting? To me it seems that the ability to know when enough is enough isn't always an intuition thing for most of us. It's a grunt lesson learned through experience, not by letting go of everything and letting heavenly powers or the Tao or the Force handle things for us.

I'd love to cut and run and trust that situations I need to perform in handle themselves. Brain surgery? No, I'd prefer the surgeon have trained, studied, practiced, and not just stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before. I want her expertise earned, not emergent as an article of faith.

Perhaps v9 is another repackaged way to keep the proletariat from amassing wealth or power, by scaring us off it and reassuring us that life will be better if striving to achieve is disfavored.

Dull blades cause trouble, too. Undersharpening, underpreparing, and not putting enough acorns away for the winter cause problems. The Tao can't help me with all of that; I have to take care of my own business. Maybe it worked for the (Grateful) Deadheads, and maybe it works for the Taoists and the twelve-steppers, but I'll take my responsibility with a side of invested effort, hold the let-go-let-god thing, thanks.