The be-all, end-all problem is of course overpopulation, as we all know. In the media you canīt read any intelligent solutions to this problem. Sometimes you can read intelligence but not functional intelligence. In the case of China, where you consciously limit your birth rate to two children per family, thereīs amniocentesis and suddenly everyone wants sons. We canīt keep up with the technology. Then, here we are with cloning. Newt Gingrich will want 900 versions of himself. The stew weīre in is enormous. A movie mogul said you have to play hardball twenty-four hours a day to get ahead in that business. If the leaders in the environmental movement would play hard ball twenty-four hours a day, maybe they could file their teeth.

Lucidity is the wound closest to the sun. That means to be utterly vulnerable moment by moment. Itīs the regrettable trap. Itīs like Dostoyevsky questioning whether at some point to be too conscious is to be diseased. Or, as Nietzsche said, if you stare into the abyss long enough, itīll stare back into you. Without question it is not a process that frees you from your common humanity. The seductions are countless in this world. But, it canīt bother you too much because if youīve got to take it raw, take it raw. Thatīs what taoism is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzxRQjVHlyw