This is Chapter 29 of the Tao Te Ching, the central text of Taoism, in a version translated by Thomas Cleary:
Should you want to take the world,
and contrive to do so,
I see you won't manage to finish.
The most sublime instrument in the world cannot be contrived.
Those who contrive spoil it; those who cling lose it.
So creatures sometimes go and sometimes follow, sometimes puff and sometimes blow,
are sometimes strong and sometimes weak,
begin sometime and end sometime;
therefore sages remove extremes, remove extravagance, remove arrogance.
The "most sublime instrument in the world" is, I'm sure, the mandolin. And I have no doubt that's what Lao-tzu was talking about, even though the mandolin had not been invented yet. So you want to take the mandolin world? The Tao says you will not finish if you contrive to do so. To contrive is to spoil the mandolin. To cling is to lose it. (In my weak moments, I think that I own my instrument. But I know that, for a time, it owns me. Then it will own someone else.)
The Tao always counsels the middle way. Remove extremes, remove extravagance, remove arrogance. When I go to extremes as a player, when I embrace extravagance, when I become arrogant, the mandolin always humbles me. That is one of the main reasons that playing the mandolin is the most spiritual and human activity I engage in. I am a better person because I play the mandolin. I don't know why everybody doesn't! (Many people "play the mandolin" in some form or other. I'm just glad that I am lucky that my form actually involves playing the mandolin. But I will not contrive. I will not cling. I will not be extravagant. I will not be arrogant.)
Today I am forty-five years old. I have played the mandolin for roughly half my life. My only regret is that I had all those other years but didn't play! (I "played the mandolin" in another form--but now I play the mandolin. And I hope to do so until the day I die.) If I avoid extremes, I will not spoil it. And when the end does come, I will have lived my life well.
© 1999 John Bird
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