The dragon approaches

Now that I have finished the first round of my translation of the Daodejing, I plan to return to the beginning so that I can polish the text and add breakdowns to the chapters that currently lack them. I found it very useful to go through the latter chapters of the text line by line; I hope you did too.

My goal for completing these tasks is the last day of the current Lunar New Year of the Rabbit on February 9, providing me with a clean sheet for the beginning of the Year of the Dragon.

I also plan to add some pieces on the main themes of the Daodejing. When you are working your way through the text chapter by chapter, it can be very easy to lose sight of the uncarved block of wood among the trees.

One topic that I find to be of particular interest is the liberal use of paradoxical statements in the Daodejing to illustrate key ideas and challenge conventional thinking. The question I keep on asking myself is how useful paradoxical thinking is for understanding the madness that is afflicting our contemporary world and predicting what will happen as we approach what promises to be an unusually momentous Year of the Dragon.

On another note, I also plan to publish more pieces on the latest developments in the Taiwan high-tech industry as part of a major new media project I am starting. More on that in the coming weeks.