Water.

Chapter 8 of the Daodejing takes the most ordinary thing in the world and asks you to look at it until you see something extraordinary. This episode does the same.

Ian shares a Dao moment from Senegal — from the darkness of the Door of No Return on Gorée Island to an impossible reunion on a Dakar street corner — and then reads his translation of Chapter 8, staying closer to water than most translations dare.

What follows is a conversation about what it actually means to dwell in the low places, to let the heart go deep without bracing, to give without keeping score, to speak without concealment. And about the quality of seeing that makes any of this possible — not sharper attention, but a cleared aperture.

幾於道 (jī1 yú2 dào4). Nearly Dao. It's as close as any of us get.