Tao of K-drama: Wait a Bit

In order to write The Tao of K-drama, I thought I should pay close attention to the Tao Te Ching. I got really hung up in the process. The five English translations I read emphasized the concept "Do nothing." According to the translations, successful people do nothing and things turn out well. I found this incomprehensible both because there was lots of doing in the Tao, and because it's literally impossible to "do nothing," right? To explain, "do nothing," people would start to talk about "go with the flow," which is not at all the same thing. 

Furthermore, it was clear to me that nothing about modern South Korea, including what is shown in its popular television, involves people doing nothing. They are always doing something. Now, it was nobody's fault but my own that I had linked K-drama with the Tao, but I was really committed to that proposition. To salvage that, and to link the busy-ness of K-drama with the "do nothing" of the Tao, I came up with this saying:

Heart of the Tao

"Do nothing" means "Wait a bit and see what comes along, while cheerfully doing your chores and cleaning all the neglected corners of your house."

My friend, the poet Michael Lally, liked it so much he suggested I make a tee shirt, which he proudly wears. Thank you, Michael!

But about the time the tee shirts arrived, I got a whole new perspective. I came across Roger Ames and David Hall's Dao Je Jing: "Making This Life Significant" A Philosophical Translation. They make the point that the correct translation is "do nothing coercive" and the common "do nothing" is simply an  unfortunate translation. This makes total sense to me -- suddenly the text is entirely coherent and I feel that I have been offered a real direction for living a good life -- do nothing coercive. AND it totally works for the message of K-drama, which made me so very happy!!!

I did have a new problem -- if "do nothing" is out the window, what do I do with my saying? The rest of it is rather perfect, as anybody who has seen even a little K-drama can tell you. Might I rephrase it???? 

And I might add, this is an excellent prescription for people with burnout! I'm going to try it myself!