As we wait for election returns, how about something completely different.  Yesterday, while out driving around, a story about the Tao Te Ching popped up on All Things Considered.  Nothing earth shattering, just a guy, a writer, Henry Alford, not a sinologist or specialist, who finds a certain wisdom in the old book.  In the very short segment, he gets to a very important Taoist idea:

By the end of the book, though, it's clear — to me at least — that it's
not advocating inaction, it's advocating preparedness. It's saying that
whenever a state of affairs reaches its peak, the opposite of that state of affairs is ready to take its place.

     I think he gets this half right.  Wu-wei does not demand complete inaction.  But "preparedness" may not be the best way to express what it is getting at.  I would say something like "awareness."  In order to see "nothing's own doing," or what should not be done, one has to open oneself, to be aware in a heightened and unobstructed manner, of what is unfolding in Way.  Indeed, that sort of awareness might be the primary "lesson" of the Tao Te Ching.  See what is there and what is not there in order to apprehend what not to do.  Otherwise how can we live up to that line from passage 11:

Presence gives things there value but absence makes them work.

    You have to be aware of what is present and what is absent.

    Anyway, just wanted to make note of Taoism on the radio, since it doesn't happen that often.