'The Legend of the Origin of the Tao Te Ching on Lao Tzu's Road into exile' is a short poem by Bertolt Brecht whose protagonist, Lao Tzu decides to give everything up and go into exile. Riding an ox, and accompanied by a little boy, he is stopped by a customs officer as he is about to cross the border. The customs officer strikes a bargain with the old man and so are born the 81 Sayings.

The poem served as a creative impulse for 81 authors from all over the world who came together after the Covid-19 pandemic to reimagine what these 81 Sayings could have been. The collection was published as 81 Sayings On the Softening of our World, edited by Manfred Schewe. In the podcast, Sukhesh Arora speaks to some of the authors who make visible the rigidity in our volatile world, and also make more tangible how such hardening may be overcome. Each conversation reveals, in its own sublte way, the push and pull between hope and despair, and the possibilities inherent in a badly broken world.