Off topic here a bit.

I went China last week and I went hiking on a mountain sacred to Taoist believers. Along the way, a small kid handed me a book which contains some Taoist scriptures.

I have no use of this and it's a bit disrespectful to toss away stuff like these. So if anyone wants it, ping me I can give it to you.

DDJ LVIII

the text:
When the government is muddled
the people are simple;
when the government is alert
the people are cunning.
It is on disaster that good fortune perches;
it is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches.
Who knows the limit? Does not the straightforward exist?
The straightforward changes again into the crafty, and the good changes again into the monstrous. Indeed, it is long since the people were perplexed.
Therefore the sage is square-edged but does not scrape,
has corners but does not jab,
extends himself but not at the expense of others,
shines but does not dazzle.

the commentary:
Can we just take a moment to appreciate “It is on disaster that good fortune perches; it is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches”? A very clear and punchline-worthy way of spelling out the interdependence of opposite pairs. As the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has it: “Empires wax and wane, states cleave asunder and coalesce”. So it is with life. There can be no heights without depths or mountains without valleys. Understanding that good and bad follow one another, the sage does not try to uphold and maintain good, or to root out and exterminate bad. Instead, they embrace ambivalence and go with the natural way of things.
This reminds me also of Alan Watts’ comment about a “perfectly pestiferous mass of a million saints”. That is, a grasshopper alone is fine, but too many of them at once would be a plague. Virtue or good is no different. Variety is needed for life to happen, and expecting all the world to conform to one ideal of good and proper is in a way an act of violence on life itself. Understanding this, the sage follows their nature and does not try to force it on anything else, accepting that each thing will likewise follow its own nature.