Tao

Taoism (in addition to Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism) is the pursuit of "becoming one with the Tao" which is interpreted as harmonizing one's will with nature. When you consider that nature is God's image, pursuing the Tao is harmonizing your will with God's image. This idea is consistent with Baruch Spinoza's conception of God.

The oneness of creation mentioned in the "Destruction" section describes how profoundly large and cohesive creation (which includes the terms: nature and the universe) is as God's image. Community acting to help reduce the fragmentation (evil) within God's image is mentioned within the "Purification" section, which must occur with individuals exhibiting humility as mentioned within the "Humility" section. The combination of these ideas shows a reality that can endure anything that might be seen temporarily as a problem. In this way, becoming self-less (achieving humility) is liberation from suffering. Both physically and mentally, there will always be pain of various forms, within our mortal existence as we gradually decay and die. The knowledge of our oneness within God's image provides us with the conceptual framework to understand suffering as mentioned within the "Happiness" section.

With us being only our perception and our will, as mentioned within the "Starting" section, the Tao is making our thoughts harmonize within God's image, as mentioned within the "Thoughts" section, while being supported by the single greatest (and only) virtue, humility, and our individual cohesiveness known as community. So, thought is our mental cohesiveness while community is our physical cohesiveness, with both providing simple evidence of oneness within God's image, despite fragmentation (evil) that separates individual entities in both time and space. The control of thoughts, with our will, is critical to harmonizing our will with God's will, because it controls everything we do as an individual.

The most important way to control our thoughts is to not encourage or retain fear, since fear is the perception of imaginary fragmentation (evil). Obviously, most people would consider fear a natural reaction that aids temporary survival in many ways within creation. However, fear is a type of pride, since it attempts to label a part of creation as a part of fragmentation (evil), which is also ignoring the authority of God. Instead, it is important to pursue humility, which is the path by which your will comes into harmony with God's will.

Community is the external guide of your perception, and your perception guides your will. Community combined with the humility of individuals helps to support the effort to harmonize yourself with God's will (as mentioned within the "Friends"). Harmonizing with God's image is equivalent to harmonizing with the cohesive presence within God's image, which is God's will (i.e., active purification, described within the "Purification" section).

Now

To "live in the moment" is the act of perceiving your will and is a practice which can help guide your will. The practice takes the form of meditation, prayer (i.e., focused thought), silence, and contemplation. Through introspection we can understand both our conscious intentions and our unconscious intentions, such that we can guide our will in the best possible way at a single point in time.

Modern society exists consumed within distractions that prevent introspection and causes our will to have little focus or guidance. Our lack of focus makes our individual will within modern society weak by comparison to people in the past and is an unfortunate side-effect of modern "improvements". Media control with the aid of pharmaceuticals and statistics can provide guidance, but such guidance does not guide the individual. Instead, such broad forms of manipulation guide groups of people in ways that conform to previous knowledge of propriety. Marketing provides distraction that is perpetuated with materialism. The distractions we experience help to shape our wills for us and fill a void within our weak volition.

The problem with the distractions we all face on a daily basis is that we do not retain control over ourselves. Our will can be impacted in ways that appear subtle but accumulate over time. The fact we are losing control of our will means that we are losing what is most valuable to ourselves.

Creativity can help shield us from distractions by actualizing our will, giving it substance or form that can be perceived. With creative self-expression we can be introspective in a way that helps us avoid distractions. Creative self-expression is only perpetuated with optimism and contentment, but ultimately must be a product of our will if it helps to guide our will. Creativity does take place naturally within creation as reproduction which makes a part of our will immortal within time. However, any artistic endeavors can help guide our will in a way that impacts us as an individual and influences the perceptions of other people.

Starting

I want to pursue simple truths from a single person and their random experiences, recorded within these random words.

I want to first assert we have nothing except our Will and our Perception. These two abstract entities are the only things to change during our lifetime.

Our perception controls our will, in general. We can direct our perception, but are not normally aware of that fact.