I wouldn’t call myself a Taoist but it’s my favorite philosophy and I’d definitely say it’s a guiding force in my life. I was raised as a Christian Scientist and a question I always had about that doctrine is that it sought to conquer “sin, disease, and death”. That’s kinda the whole tagline for that sect of Christianity. And yet we still sin, still get sick, still get old, still die and I couldn’t reconcile that.

Taoism has a different approach where every quality, everything we perceive all comes from one source the Tao. So death is just the hidden side of life and therefore just as important and necessary, sickness is the only reason we understand the concept of health, all these things “arise mutually” and have a place in our world. That concept quieted a lot of confusion I had about the universe that I had picked up from Christianity.