The Tao of Walking Ridge

I did a fair amount of research before I selected my webhost for my first website. I have since learned a great deal more. What I have learned has convinced me more and more that I made a great choice.

During my search, I discovered several host providers that had great rates, but charged extra for stuff that was really useful. At the time I wanted FrontPage extensions, these were often extra. I did not know what MySQL was all about or why I would want it. PHP, CGI, Perl, ASP, eieio. I didn’t know what most of this stuff was, but knew that as I learned some of it might be useful. My webhost indichosts.net included just about everything you might want to try out in a super low priced introductory package. Great to play with and learn, with enough bandwidth to do anything you might want. If you ran out of bandwidth, then chances are your website was so successful it was worth an upgrade.
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I just learned something new. There is a misonception that if you have Windows on your PC that you should get Windows web hosting. I thought that. But it turns out that Windows gives the advantage of running the MS database, ASP, and some other Microsoft specific applications. However, scripts, especially open source scripts (WordPress) run very well on Linux. I just switched my server over. A bit nerve wracking, and some extra work for my other websites uploading them again. But wow, was it worth it.
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A beginner’s guide to playing blues harp effortlessly

© 2008, Brian Kelly

Act without doing. Work without effort.

- Tao Te Ching

When I was a teenager, I tried very hard to play blues harmonica. I tried to play music exactly as I heard it. I tried very hard, but I was unable to produce anything musical. I failed because my effort was misplaced. Like paddling upstream. More effort did not translate into better music. In fact, a closer analogy might be that my canoe was on dry land and thus my paddling was ineffective.

Then one night, after a bit of tequila, a friend in another band challenged me “if I find a harmonica, would you play it.” Thinking to myself, where would he “find” a harmonica, I thought it would be safe to answer yes and so I did. He then reached into his pocket, handed me a harmonica and we went up on stage.

While on stage, he put his guitar down and returned to the table to finish his beer. The drummer and bass player continued playing the Doors’ Roadhouse Blues. It was at this moment that I realized that I was supposed to solo.

But I didn’t know where the notes were on a harmonica! That’s when it happened. Zen. Music. Spontaneous, improvisational, full of energy. Instantaneous enlightenment. I literally learned how to play harmonica at that moment by discovering the Tao of the harp (way of the harp). Zen. As the guitar player returned to the stage surprised, he reached out his hand and said “No offense, but that is your best instrument.”
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© 2007 Kevin Smith

Sea stories are just that, stories. True or false? Possibly either. Weather the sailor is an old salt (a seasoned long timer that has seen it all and then some), or a pollywog (usually a newbie sailor that hasn’t been lucky enough to be indoctrinated while traveling over the equator) sea stories are told by all men in blue. This one happens to be true.
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Cocoa Beach is more familiar. However, the village of Cocoa is just across the Intracoastal, about 5 miles from Cocoa Beach. It is a great historic town to spend the day. Very picturesque. The area is great to visit, because you have the beach feel, and 15 minutes down the road you have a quaint historic village on a riverbank (the Intracoastal) with gift shops, restaurants, and a favorite of mine - cafes.

I’d seen this car about town, and walking down the sidewalk saw it parked in front of the cafe. The driver was sitting at the table, sipping a coffee and enjoying a cigarette. It made a good picture, but I knew when I took the photo that it would be a great subject to paint. I used the photo as a guide and tried to capture in particular the curvature and three dimensional look of the car focusing on the fender and roof highlights. By painting it, I was able to eliminate the car directly ahead and behind and reduce clutter. I now carry a camera and plan on taking pictures that I know are flawed as photographs, but that may make a great subject for painting.

Cocoa Cafe - 2007, Acrylic on canvas board, 14″ x 18″

I came across this modern language version of the Tao Te Ching by Ron Hogan and was struck by the very first lines

If you can talk about it,
it ain’t Tao.
If it has a name,
it’s just another thing.

and

Stop wanting stuff;
it keeps you from seeing what’s real.
When you want stuff,
all you see are things.

With many works, it might be considered disrespectful to reinterpret a classic work. And there are few works more classic than the Tao Te Ching, written around 2,500 years ago. However, it would be difficult to precisely interpret unless one took the time to learn the Chinese language as used in that period. Thus, any English language versions are really just the opinion of that translator and their attempt to capture the message and sense of poetry. Further, like the finger pointing at the moon, Taoism focuses on the moon (idea) rather than the finger (words). Since it was likely written in the language of the day, an interpretation into the common language of today at the very least lends a unique perspective on this classic text. Reprinted per the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License:
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A common theme within Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen is the idea of living in the present. Living in the here and now. It is easiest to describe what this is not (since, technically, physiologically, we all live in the present - Star Trek episodes not withstanding). It is not worrying about the future and what has not yet happened. It is not thinking of the past, and regretting what cannot be changed. These are but a couple of examples of how not to live in the present, but what does one focus on to live in the present?

The world renown Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in “The Miracle of Mindfulness”, recounts a short story by Tolstoy in which an emperor seeks to answer three key questions:

What is the best time to do each thing?
What are the most important people to work with?
What is the most important thing to do at all times?

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