What we say

Yesterday I drove downtown to a book store and bought a copy of the Dao De Jing for my grand-daughter. (She might be interested.) 

I had to look at several versions of the Dao De Jing; every translation is different. The text was written in ancient Chinese symbols. What the symbols had meant 2,400 years ago is somewhat unclear. 

Uncertainty seems appropriate given the first sentence, which I suspect is the single sentence read by the most people on our planet, read by nearly all the Chinese, most other Asians and some of the rest of us. 

Very roughly, the first sentence goes, "The Dao we call the Dao is not the eternal Dao."

That resembles Rene Magritte's "The Treachery of Images,"  also known as "This Is Not a Pipe."  A portrait of a pipe is not a pipe, and a recipe for an omelet is not an omelet. 

The author starts by telling us that seeking wisdom begins with learning the following. What we say about the world and the world itself are not the same and not constant. 

The author's goal, I think, is to help readers become less aggressive. If language is uncertain, we should be uncertain.  He begins with linguistic philosophy. Or maybe not.