Many in our culture
regard youth as good
and old age as bad.
But is this true?
In the sage, youth and age are married.
Wisdom and folly each been lived fully.
Innocence and experience now support one another.
Action and rest follow each other easily.
Life and death have become inseparable.
The sage has experienced all opposites
and lets them come and go
without clinging or fretting.
Therefore the sage can talk without lecturing,
act without worrying about results,
and live in contentment with all events.
The first part of our life
was spent separating things into categories:
good and bad,
like and dislike,
me and you,
us and them.
Now it is time to put all the pieces back together
into a seamless whole.
The Sage's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life
by William Martin
