I realize that much of what I post about is bad news: critiques of politics and society in the US, in China, in Singapore and elsewhere.  In my everyday life I am not so pessimistic.   My daily countenance is rather postive, cheery even.  A Chuang Tzu-like laugh is quick to my lips.

    Perhaps the generally critical posture of The Useless Tree has something to do with the news that gets into the papers and onto the web, much of which is disturbing or negative.  Alternatively, a certain critical tone is inescapable when we are comparing modern life anywhere to the ideals of ancient Chinese philosophical texts: much of what we encounter these days would be problematic for Confucians or Taoists.

     So, I am going to make a bit more of an effort to post "good news," items that would, in fact, be viewed favorably from the perspective of Confucianism or Taoism.  Here is one from today’s NYT:

   The East River Is Cleaner Now. The Water Birds Say So.

An archipelago of sorts, a collection of rock formations dotted with
scrub brush, has been home to New York’s mental institutions,
quarantine hospitals and some of the city’s most famous residents. Long
abandoned by people, some of the islands have now become home to
migratory birds that have flocked there in numbers not seen in decades.

The Audubon Society of New
York, in partnership with New York Water Taxi, took visitors on a tour
of the islands yesterday to showcase the bustling wildlife on display
just a short boat ride away from asphalt, concrete and steel towers of
Manhattan. Cormorants, egrets, herons and American oystercatchers are
just some of the species not usually spotted in New York that have
congregated on the islands, which include North and South Brother
Islands, between Rikers Island and the Bronx, and Mill Rock, just north
of Gracie Mansion.

 This strikes me as a good thing.  What had become a wasteland has bloomed into a refuge for birds.  Where once disabled people were quarantined and shut away from society, animals now build nests and flowers blossom.  There are many dismal aspects of the New York geography, many ways in which our efforts to control nature and improve upon it, and to deny the complex diversity of human expression in our desire to create productive citizens, have yielded ugly and blighted urban environments.  But if we wait long enough, if we let go of those efforts to control, it all returns to Way. 

     I am, by no means, anti-urban (even though I live in a rural area).   But it is pleasing to notice the impermanence of concrete, the fragility of steel.