thegodwhisperingsofhanqingjao1to5

Chapter 1: I Am Not Myself

"Mother. Father. Did I do right?"

Chapter 2: You Don't Believe in God

"When I follow the path of the gods through the wood, My eyes take every twisting turn of the grain,
But my body moves straight along the planking,
So those who watch me see that the path of the gods
is straight,
While I dwell in a world with no strightness in it."

Chapter 3: There Are Too Many of Us

"Let me tell you the most beautiful story I know.
A man was given a dog, which he loved very much.
The dog went with him everywhere,
but the man could not teach it to do anything useful.
The dog would not fetch or point,
it would not race or protect or stand watch.
Instead the dog sat near him and regarded him,
always with the same inscrutable expression.
'That's not a dog, it's a wolf,' said the man's wife.
'He alone is faithful to me,' said the man,
and his wife never discussed it with him again.
One day, the man took his dog with him into his private airplane
and as tehy flew over high winter mountains,
the engines failed
and the airplane was torn to shreds among the trees.
The man lay bleeding
his belly torn open by blades of sheared metal,
steam rising from his organs in the cold air,
but all he could think about was his faithful dog.
Was he alive? Was he hurt?
Imagine his relief when the dog came padding up
and regarded him with that same steady gaze.
After an hour the dog nosed the man's gaping abdomen,
then began pulling out intestines and spleen and liver
and gnawing on them,
all the while studying the man's face.
'Thank God,' said the man.
'At least one of us will not starve.' "

Chapter 4: I Am a Man of Perfect Simplicity

"When I was a child, I thought
a god was disappointed
whenever some distraction
interuppted my tracing of the lines
revealed in the grain of the wood.
Now I know the gods expect such interruptions,
for they nkow our frailty.
It is competion that surprises them."

Chapter 5: Nobody Is Rational

"My father often told me,
We have servants and machines
in order that our will may be carried out
beyond the reach of our own arms.
Machines are more powerful than servants
and more obedient and less rebellious,
but machines have no judgment
and will not remonstrate with us
when our will is foolish
and will not disobey us
when our will is evil.
In times and places where people despise the gods,
those most in need of servants have machines,
or choose servants who will behave like machines.
I believe this will continue
until the gods stop laughing."