Zhuangzi: “That’s an order!”? Ha, ha. Who’s the dependent one now—me who comes or you who needs me to come?
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Scott: Well, I guess we both are—but maybe me more than you. Which is pretty ironic.
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Zz: Yes, ironic indeed. The shadow of your shadow is less dependent than you are. My dependence is by way of causation—which nothing can escape—and yours is psychological.
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Scott: But if my dependence or non-dependence is a purely psychological experience, then it figures that I would likely be more dependent. I mean—no offense—but well, you just “are”—like a rock—and I’m always trying to figure out what I am and trying to be it.
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Zz: No offense taken—like Shen Dao says, “A clump of earth never strays from the Dao.” But then, of course, straying from the Dao is as much the Dao as anything else—and I rather enjoyed it.
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Scott: You enjoyed straying from the Dao?
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Zz: Of course! That’s just being human! And I liked being human. It was fun! Does a rock have fun being a rock?
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Scott: So Shen Dao’s critics were right that his dao was a perfect dao for the dead, but not for the living.
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Zz: In one sense, yes. But they didn’t get that part of the fun can be living as if dead. Indeed, that makes for the most fun of all!
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Scott: Wait. Living as if dead is fun? Wait! I think I get it—living as if dead means taking life and death as a single string; incorporating death into one’s life is the equivalence of uniting existence and non-existence to form a oneness. And living that frees you to enjoy life all the more.
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Zz: That’s it. Death is not just taken as an inevitable—begrudgingly—but actually informs our living in such a way as to unite us with the One Big Open-endedness. That’s how and where we wander!
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Scott: I feel like we’ve hit the bedrock of your philosophy.
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Zz: Yep. Bye!
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Scott: Zhuangzi? Zhuangzi? Okay—see you when I see you.