Taoism – Xenofact.com

The Dialog

August 29, 2026 by Xenofact

In my readings on Taoism, I often find them relaxing. Beautiful metaphors about flowing water. Kind advice on remaining calm. Plenty of (mostly) gentle humor. Above and below it all is the idea of the Tao, of the ever inflowing and outflowing reality.

Then of course real life hits. The car needs work. You’re having a panic attack over a sore tooth. A co-worker has suddenly quit and you get their work. All of American politics since 2016. The above lovely words are just words when stress kicks in – unless you put them into practices.

Yet at the same time, that idea of the Tao sits there. When we meditate or engage in internal alchemy or psychological investigation, there’s something there. We work to develop and refine ourselves, the walls come down just enough we’re there with something greater.

In my readings and meditations – and coping with stress – I found a concept that helps me better connect with the world, with the Tao, that I call The Dialog.

When speculating on a stressful situation, something stuck in my mind – that the situation was really a dialog. Yes, there were potential concerns, but those concerns prompted adjustment. In fact the concerns led to the very changes that would mitigate the concerns. It wasn’t a conflict, it was a harmony, like a discussion among people.

The more I thought about this I saw how much of life was a dialog, a constant interplay of information, a conversation. Driving a car. Adjusting your diet. Moderating difficult work situations. Talking people down – or talking people up. We’re always navigating.

Even we ourselves are a dialog. This idea adapts to that idea. This experience leads to new discoveries and adjustments. We’re not who we once were – because we’re a conversation. That conversation might be an annoying passive aggressive argument, but we can change the kind of conversation.

Thinking of life, even in stressful situations, as a dialog helped me feel more connected to life – and more alive. I was always in a dialog with life, with my life, with my environment. I was always adapting, always changing, never solid, just alive.

This also helped me understand the ever-elusive Tao of Taoism better. You can’t grasp it you, you can’t point at it, you can’t speak of it. But when you realize life is an ever-swirling dialog you’re a bit closer to it because you’re not trying to define, you’re being.

Life whirls and circles, alters and changes. You can’t settle on any one point or place and say “this is it” – and the concept of The Dialog helps you not settle down or try to claim one part of the world as permanent.

I’ve taken to asking myself each day how I’ve used this concept of The Dialog and it’s been extremely helpful. It’s a nice way to review how I use a useful idea – or when I could have.

So next time you feel off, feel a little “too solid,” feel a little conflicted, think of how you’re in a Dialog. You’re learning and reacting, the world changes and react, and if you’re open, you can navigate to places you want to go (even if you may not know you want to). You might not just feel better, but you may feel a little more connected to everything.

–Xenofact

Hyperpolitics: A Review And More

August 16, 2026 by Xenofact

I usually write about spirituality and psychology, venturing into politics here and there from those point of views. So reviewing a political book may seem different, but hang in there and trust me on this.

I’d heard about Anton Jäger’s book Hyperpolitics in a Guardian article about the same book and how it was becoming popular, especially on the left. I’d not heard of it at all, but after reading a description of the theories, I immediately ordered a copy after reading the article.

What’s it about? Simply, why things seem to be super-political and why nothing gets better and everything gets worse. It’s a hefty order for Jäger, who spells out his theories in less than 100 pages. Though he said the easiest way to describe himself would be a Marxist “even with all the baggage and connotations,” his book is hardly a work of a singular theory or theories. There’s something bigger here.

I’ll also spoil the “bigger.” He argues that you can measure our experiences in the 20th and 21st century by levels of Politicization and Institutionalization and that’s key to understanding our time in 2026, when I’m writing this. It breaks down like this:

Early 20th century was Mass Politics – Politicized and Institutionalized. Unions, churches clubs, political groups, etc. were political and institutional, and part of people’s lives.
In the later 20th Century to about 2008 we saw Post-politics – Decreased institutionalization and politicization. Ideas of the “End of History,” political parties as careers even more than they were. Technocracy. The start of endless discussions of how isolated we were.
Antipolitics,the burn-it-all-down era of the early 21st century was political but not institutional. There was less lifestyle, no membership roles, etc. There was, I would note, astroturfing.
Hyperpolitics is where we are now and it’s in the same area of Antipolitics, but is an age of outburst. Everything is political, but there’s no institutionalization, so nothing much gets done. The way I describe Jäger’s take is an age of outbursts, of tantrums.

It’s a simple model, but Jäger brings receipts. I can also say having lived through the decades he describes, his book fit my experiences uncomfortably well. When a book makes you rethink some 40 years of life and what you saw, it’s worth paying attention.

He also is more than willing to discuss failures of supposedly progressive and left-wing movements in these times. The same uncomfortable feeling is there when you see good ideas gone wrong or fade away. If there’s a flaw in his analysis of modern movements, he does miss that some things failed but did leave behind cultural infrastructure, albeit not so much a movement but the seeds of something longer-term.

Now we’ve got to try to rebuild thing. Jäger has some ideas. He has some skepticism. Ironically I think what his book spawned may be more important the book. You could sum up his ideas in a page or two, its what comes after that matters.

So is it worth it? Pretty much yes. So go read it, I’m pretty sure if you read my writing you’d want to read his.

However I promised this was relevant to my interest in philosophy and religion, and I think Jäger’s model also requires us to ask about the role of religion, philosophy, and spiritual practices. The value of cultural institutions is clear from his writing – in fact, no small amount of Hyperpolitics is things seeming to be glaringly obvious in retrospect. So where does that leave us in a time of hyperpolitical churches, diverse spiritual practices, and grifter Internet gurus?

I think that many of us who are “spiritually independent” – and that includes me – need to take a hard look if we and the world are better served by more spiritual organization and institutionalization. What are our practices if they aren’t connected to something larger? What is being missed? What spiritual progress will we make by getting our hands dirty?

Uncomfortable? Perhaps. But as noted, Jäger’s book produced a lot of discomfort for me, in a good way.

In my own interests in the history of Taoists and various Chinese philosophical groups, I confess to a longing for things I read about. Weirdo artists and mystics gathering in a grove to drink and discuss. Writers exchanging ideas and books and poems. Contentious but sincere mystic orders. Something institutional not necessarily in the way of a formal church but of connection and camaraderie and continuity. I think that longing for spiritual community does indicate something is missing – perhaps at least for me.

As of this writing, I am asking about community building, about connection. What can be built? What is there now (the area I live in has several multifaith and secular-minded groups)? It’s leading me to ask more questions. Jäger found something, and I’m going to see what he dug up.

–Xenofact

Giving It A Go

August 9, 2026 by Xenofact

Part of my larger meditative/spiritual practice is to ensure my development and explorations are on “all levels.” There’s breathing, there’s mysticism, and sometimes there’s just having a healthy meal. At one point in earlier 2026 I was thinking about how I aligned with people since social interactions are so important to us. I mean yes I worked to play a role in society, help people, etc., but I wanted a way to evaluate it.

I wanted a touchstone to provide a quick way to evaluate my behaviors and choices. A kind of exercise/health routine for the social soul as it were. Fortunately the choice was obvious.

I picked the Five Virtues from various Chinese practices. Since I had heard of them due to my interest in Taoism, I had some vague familiarity. Since they were part of the larger idea of the Five Elements that pervaded a great deal of Chinese thoughts, I had references. Thus each day I’d reflect on Truthfulness, Righteousness, Wisdom, Benevolence, and Order. And, yes I’ve seen different translations and takes on them, so I took a go at finding the best take I could.

(I should note these are also part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Though I think TCM as a whole has virtues, many a cure or treatment has not been scientifically validated and some are disproven or questionable.)

What I did was take a look at myself, go “I need a quick checklist for my social roles,” grabbed something I was vaguely familiar with, and ran with it. That was it.

Now that may seem a little sudden, perhaps even shallow to just sort of go “gonna use that method of ethical thought” and take off with it. I mean these are deep social principles, these are Virtues with historical significance and baggage. Can I take thousands of years of thought and just go for it?

Actually, yes I can.

The key thing here is that I had to start somewhere. I wanted to find a way to look at my ethics and social interactions. I didn’t want to kick the tires on a bunch of methods, I wanted to start. The point in fact was not to find the best (if that is possible). The point was to get going so I start thinking and work things out over time.

And thus I took something that I knew I could start with and had sources on. In time I learned more, read arguments, found some interesting opinions, and looked at many a conflicting set of thoughts. I also found plenty of shallow or entry-level takes. But also I got thinking and thinking about myself and making changes in my life.

I looked at other works on ethics and compared them. I thought about the arguments among Taoists and Confucians over if Truthfulness was core or Benevolence was (guess who I sided with). Throughout it all I kept asking about myself, my behavior, my principles – and yes, I got up to some wild and weird comparisons because I’m me.

Did it “work?” Well, yes in that I feel I have a way to think about myself and what I do. Will this be the way I evaluate myself for the rest of my life? I have no idea, but I got going and I’m pretty sure I’m a better person.

That’s something to remember in all our spiritual and ethical and mystical practices – you have to get going. Maybe it’s slow or it’s fast. Maybe there’s some study or you come out hot out of the gate. But you have to actually get to doing it so you can learn and do and be better.

You might even find out you’re wrong about a choice. I might decide there’s a better way to map my ethics than picking up what I had lying around. But I got moving and that’s what matters in our practices to be more of who we are and can be.

–Xenofact