07/29/2026
VALUING THE BRIEF
I wished my wife a good morning.
She asked: “Is there anything going on?” After all these decades, I knew that she meant, “Are there any problems today?”
I laughed: “Not yet.”
Nothing in my life is predictable. I happened to be thinking that even stress isn’t reliable. I’ve armored myself against it, and then found that a particular day wasn’t all the difficult to manage.
The spiritual people speak of “impermanence.” Nothing lasts. Yes. Gold can be stolen (or at least must be spent), and then even catastrophes come sporadically.
Chapter 23 of the Daodejing states:
A cyclone doesn’t last beyond a morning.
A rainstorm doesn’t last beyond the day’s end.
What does this?
Heaven and earth.
If heaven and earth value the brief,
then what about people?
***
Indeed. What about us? Maybe the better position in life is not to armor ourselves, not to try to predict the unknowable, and not to pin one’s reality on things or events.
Maybe it’s about valuing the brief—and not things.
___________
Hiroshige (1797-1858)
Sudden Shower at Ohashi Bridge and Atake
Series: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo
Woodblock Print
1857
13.25 x 9 (inches)
