Have faith in the world!

(Eftirfarandi boðskap lagði Taóið mér á hjarta, og er honum beint til þeirra sem málið kann að varða):

I would be beneficial for you, dear children, to cultivate a sound and sane sense of proportions regarding the state of the world.

This is especially appropriate for those of you who are prone to fits of despair because of the horrid and unjust mess you sense the world to be in.

Certainly, there are many horrible and ugly things in the world, but I would point out that there are also in it many, many things of exceeding beauty and loveliness.

And it is probably and auspiciously true that the sum total of human goodness and happiness is greater than the sum total of human evil and misery (*one argument I would advance in favour of this proposition is that we notice the bad things in the world more than the good things, because the former stick out more than the latter - and they stick out because they are abnormal, not in tune with the usual and predominantly benevolent scheme of things, which scheme does not ordinarily attract our attention precisely because of its ordinariness. To put the whole matter succinctly and bluntly: we don´t pay no mind to it until and unless it goes bust).

That is not, of course, to condone or overlook the evil and the misery on this planet, but it does give one much more hope and faith in the human race than if one believed the reverse to be the case, i.e. that evil and misery were the rule rather than the exception.