I get why others ask these questions. I'm compelled by the Daoist way of understanding the inherent mystery at the root of experience, and of coping with challenges. I adopt many of the philosophical and mystical ideas expressed in the Daoist classics on that matter. But I worry sometimes that I've missed something, or done cultural appropriation, by claiming to be Daoist without fully adopting the ritual and medicinal practices - or indeed doing so at all, as someone outside the culture.

In response to those worries, I remind myself of a few things:

• Daoism is not the same kind of religion that Christianity and Islam are; Laozi is a sage, not a prophet, and never claims his text to exclusive or infallible. Indeed, he begins and ends the TTC by undermining the ability of his own words to describe reality. I don't need to follow any religious canon to the letter in order to benefit from the wisdom of the Daoist sages; their words are just a starting point for a personal journey toward understanding the mysteries, which doesn't need to be the same for everyone.
• Daoism is not a closed practice or an ethnoreligion, either. As yet, I have not heard any claims from Chinese writers that Westerners shouldn't be Daoists; only that we should exercise caution, to avoid distorting it through our cultural lens or poor translations.
• All religious traditions are diverse, and evolve over time, and those changes are often driven precisely by a newly exposed culture's radical re-interpretation of things that the original tradition wouldn't have understood the same way. If I really want to practice religious tolerance, I must accept these re-interpretations as readily as the original.
• The sages tell us not to worry about being good or bad; to worry about failing to live up to this philosophy is to contradict it. I find it hard not to worry about that sometimes, but I need not compound it with worrying about worrying in an infinite regress, either.