(Below is the third in a four-part mistranslation of the Tao Te Ching. For the first two segments go here and here respectively. Practice the patience of true understanding while wading through this incomprehensible text.)

46.
Those who have Tao, retreat before horses depositing their “night soil” upon the neighbor’s lawn. Those who are without Tao, are military horses giving birth in the suburbs. Your misfortune’s greatest when you know nothing of your feet. You deserve the most blame as because of of your desire always for more and more, snorting heroin in the bathroom of the local high school one moment, and eating platefuls of cheap beef products from out a greasy paper bag the next. Know your foot as a foot, and that will always be sufficient.

47.
You don’t leave your front door, yet have knowledge of everything under heaven. Don’t spy into the window of enlightenment, but you face the heavenly way like an unraveling tongue of light. This journey fills the far reaches, but its knowledge fills few. According to this particular sacred person, you have no need to go galavanting across the globe to understand the motivations that drive our species, nor do you need to see through your eyes to be able to see through your lies, but can instead be a shell of a man while also complete.

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(A D Jameson, author of Amazing Adult Fantasy, out this coming fall through Mutable, talks with us about his influences, his loves, his hates, and his secret horror. His most recent story, Korawik Wattanakul, can be found at Harp & Altar. A full list of his published stories can be found here, and to read his extended bio, please go here.)

What does it mean to be a writer? Who are writers? What do they do?

For me, writing’s a form of thinking. It allows me to express ideas that I couldn’t express otherwise, because my memory isn’t good enough. And because writing possesses a logic all its own. It’s a meditative activity and a form of discipline that allows me to clarify some thoughts, and muddle others.

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(We’ve written about David Lindsay before, but all the same this week wanted to present you with some of his own words, a selection from one of Lindsay’s lesser known novels, entitled The Haunted Woman, a book that reads like Victorian Scooby Dooby Doo with a hefty dosage of spiritualism and a good deal of romantic intrigue. Below is a selection from the first chapter.)

In the latter half of August, Marshall Stokes went to New York, in order to wind up the estate of the lately-deceased brother of the lady to whom he was betrothed. As a busy underwriting member of Lloyd’s, he could ill afford the time — he was over there for upwards of a fortnight — but no alternative had presented itself. Miss Loment had no connections in America, she possessed no other relations, except a widowed aunt, with whom she lived, and it was clearly out of the question for either of the two ladies to travel across in person, to examine books, interview lawyers, deal with claims, etc. — they had not the necessary business experience. The task, therefore, had devolved on Marshall. He had not been able to conclude the business, but he had put it in a fair way of being concluded, and had appointed a reputable firm to act as Miss Loment’s representatives. The estate was worth forty thousand dollars.

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Imagine: One fine morning, the boss walks into your office and says “I need your group to be more innovative.” Hmm. What does she mean by that statement? How are you supposed to go “be innovative”? What questions do you ask her about this new mandate? Can you do it? Can your staff?

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