Man is born in Tao

The Distinction Between Needs and Desires

The poem is a lovely summary of the distinction between a living species’ needs and desires. The poet categorizes the distinction between the fish and his human selves. He claims that while needs can be met in various ways, expectations grow in number as time passes. The need is a clear objective that originates in nature. It is a moment-to-moment progression of life that advances along with the life. In comparison to wants, impulses are mind-controlled and can develop with the passing of time. The desires are particularly not the needs, they are the very first source to deeply understand the complexity involved. The needs of the life are beautiful and the never ending desires are the ugly phase of life. Needs are something which is bodily and the desires are the psychological entities. The problems in the world that we see today is because more importance is being given to the desires rather than the needs.

The Impact of Desires on Living Standards

People are more concerned about the desires getting fulfilled at the expense of the person’s needs. For example, the difference in the living standards in any of the developing or underdeveloped state is one of the best examples. The rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer being deprived of the basic necessities. The author explains that nature calls for living in that particular moment and does not want the living creature to worry about the rest of the time coming ahead. Planning in advance makes the person teach grasping more than a need before hand. This poses a negative impact on the living standards of the people and even oneself of an individual cannot live in peace. Furthermore, the desire got fulfilled takes one to another higher level of desire acquisition and so on. He states that the human is in the race to reach the horizon and he hurriedly wants to attain whatever in the short span of time. The desire is a goal that takes a person to the distant lands. Taking intervals and moving with peace and calmness takes a person to the higher places of grasping with the intellectuals and philosophers have been reached. It makes a person experience the life in a different, and awesome manner. He compares the desires attained by the fish in the water, it does not worry about the next time coming ahead, nature has planned the existence of it according to the natural cycle being created. The man, however, is not content with what he is having today and at this particular moment. His propelling desires make him worry, and he takes actions which are breaking the rules of the life. It allows him to cross the limitations, that have been drawn by nature, and also by some other external force. The man thinks that his desires are taking him into the most secure kind of the position. However, he is unaware of the fact that he himself is leading towards an insecure kind of a position, because ultimately he has to be thrown out in the world of universality where he has to pay back. He has to pay back for all what he has been done or doing to the mother earth. Everything a man does is something that is conditional. He has to pay for these conditions, but at the moment in luxury of his desires, he thinks everything to be unconditional.

The Connection Between a Man and Nature

This is the common mistake that is in the mind of each one of a person who goes by the desires. The author states that fishes are born in water and the man is born in Tao. This means that the way water(nature) protects the fish, Tao protects the man. By nature, he points out towards the god. Fishes cannot feel water in the way that they are so much deeply interacted with it, as they are born into the water. They have never been separated from us so they are acquainted with each of its features. In the same way, the poet states that a man has left the nature, the god and is lost into the desires so much that is not caring or what nature teaches him. The cycle going around him in the natural phenomena has so much of the clues for the man, but is after the never ending desire of getting material things. The poet is trying to take the reader into a very deep spiritual thinking pattern.