32

Though he has been innerduced enough,

There’s a lot we don’t understand about the Dude.

Jackie Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town,

But the Dude doesn’t draw shit.

He is someone the square community doesn’t give a shit about,

And yet he is in a unique position:

A deadbeat, a loser, a bum,

Someone in whom casualness runs deep.

The achievers are only dimly aware of the Dude,

Yet if only they could learn the Dude way,

Then the world would become totally unspoiled,

Our fucking troubles would be over,

People would stay and enjoy their coffee,

And we would not have to involve the Supreme Court.

Achievers give rise to institutions,

And the habit of determining a preferred nomenclature,

Yet this all might be a lot more uh uh uh complex, uh uh…

You know?

There isn’t a literal connection.

Face it, there isn’t any connection.

What the fuck am I taking about?

If we only listened occasionally, we might learn something:

After cracking the empty case,

The strands in Duder’s head enter an ocean of the pacific.

Tao Te Ching: 32

Tao is eternal and absolute,

Yet in its nameless, potential, and undifferentiated state,

It exerts little influence upon the world.

No one in the world can harness it wholly.

If only the rulers of the world could master it,

Then everything would naturally fall into place,

All our problems would be solved,

The people would be perfectly content,

And they would no longer need to be governed to get along.

Civilization gives rise to institutions,

And the habit of categorizing things,

Yet we need to recognize the limits of their efficacy:

To mark boundaries is to impose barriers upon the world.

Why is this important?

Because the way Tao manifests in the world

Is analogous to streams joining together into a great river

And those rivers uniting into an all-encompassing ocean.