Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism
Oct 7, 2026 · 21 min · 10 segments
When we dread the future, we assume that the sky might fall, and we also assume that we know what would be good for us and what would be bad. **More resources:** - Free resources, books and more on…
Chen LiHost
In the small state of Qi, a long time ago, there lived a man who could not stop looking up at the sky.
He had come to fear that the sky might collapse and the earth give way beneath him, leaving him with nowhere to stand, and the thought would not let him go.
It occupied him so completely that he could no longer eat, and he lay awake at night listening for the first crack overhead.
Anyone who has been anxious knows how such a thought takes hold because it rarely arrives as one large fear and usually builds itself out of small steps.
A slight pain becomes a possible illness, the illness becomes a hospital, the hospital becomes a family left without support, and within a minute, the mind is standing in a ruin.
Each step seems reasonable taken alone, which is what makes the chain so convincing, although the place it leads to is one that nothing in the present has shown to be real.
The body follows the story all the same, with a tight chest and a shallow breath, since it cannot tell a danger that is imagined from one that is in the room.
I've never been able to laugh at him because his sky is a larger version of what each of us fears, that whatever holds up our life might one day give way.
So this episode is about the fear of what is coming and about what the old sages said to a frightened person, which is kinder and more honest than we might expect.
In the small state of Qi, a long time ago, there lived a man who could not stop looking up at the sky.
He had come to fear that the sky might collapse and the earth give way beneath him, leaving him with nowhere to stand, and the thought would not let him go.
It occupied him so completely that he could no longer eat, and he lay awake at night listening for the first crack overhead.
Anyone who has been anxious knows how such a thought takes hold because it rarely arrives as one large fear and usually builds itself out of small steps.
A slight pain becomes a possible illness, the illness becomes a hospital, the hospital becomes a family left without support, and within a minute, the mind is standing in a ruin.
Each step seems reasonable taken alone, which is what makes the chain so convincing, although the place it leads to is one that nothing in the present has shown to be real.
The body follows the story all the same, with a tight chest and a shallow breath, since it cannot tell a danger that is imagined from one that is in the room.
I've never been able to laugh at him because his sky is a larger version of what each of us fears, that whatever holds up our life might one day give way.
So this episode is about the fear of what is coming and about what the old sages said to a frightened person, which is kinder and more honest than we might expect.
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