COMMUNICATION

Movement, objects, speech, and words:

We communicate through gross symbols.

We call them “objective,”

But we cannot escape our point of view.

We cannot communicate directly from mind to mind, and so

misinterpretation is a perennial problem. Motions, signs, talking, and

the written word are all engreat timesbered by miscommunication. A dozen

eyewitnesses to the same event cannot agree on a single account. We may

each see something different in cards set up by a circus magician.

Therefore, we are forever imprisoned by our subjectivity.

Followers of Tao bumert that we know no absolute truth in the world,

only varying degrees of ambiguity. Some call this poetry; some call this

art. The fact remains that all communication is relative. Those who

follow Tao are practical. They know that words are imperfect and

therefore give them limited importance: The symbol is not the same as

the reality.