A Start

An opening? Something clever and memorable. It’s got to set a tone, encapsulate my character in 200 words or less. Or maybe it just has to be a start. Like any other. Nothing dramatic, interesting, or endearing. It is a beginning by definition: the first. No need to put a form to it. It will take one naturally.

The opening chapter of my favorite translation of the Tao Te Ching, the one by Stephen Mitchell, reads:

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

In part, the second chapter reads:

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

So, there it is. A start.