Hold On to the Center

Yeats said the center cannot hold. Lao Tzu said: hold on to it.

In Chapter 5 of The Tao of Lloyd,  Lloyd Dobler tries to find the still point under the noise: doomscrolling, spiritual overtalking, Gen X refusal, American collapse, and the small radical pause between inhale and exhale.

A sorta-kinda guided meditation on what it means to hold the center without clutching it, weaponizing it, or turning it into one more thing to yell about online.

From the edge of empire and the center of self — this is The Tao of Lloyd.

Transcript

Hey. It’s Lloyd Dobler, and welcome back for chapter 5. Feels like we’ve been tumbling through static for a while, doesn’t it? The yelling, the doomscroll, the trying to meditate or medicate our way through the end of empire. I think this one’s where the volume drops—where we stop talking over the noise and actually listen for the thing underneath it. Because by now you’ve probably noticed: I’m great at talking about not-talking. Non-doing? I’ve been doing it to death. But this one stops me mid-sentence. This is a reading from chapter Five of the only book that ever told me to chill and somehow made it sound like scripture. Think of it as the original Be Here Now, only with fewer colors and better editing. This is chapter five of the Tao Te Ching (breath) (Bell chime.) The Tao doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil. The Master doesn’t take sides; she welcomes both saints and sinners. The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. Hold on to the center. And that concludes chapter 5. That’s the verse. Here’s the mess it made in my head. “Hold on to the center.” Yeah, right — I can’t even hold on to a morning routine. Mondays and Tuesdays I’m on target and on task like a barista on Adderall during a Pumpkin Spice riot — but by the end of the week I’m like a monk who got knocked out in a mosh pit and woke up browsing keychains at a Margaritaville gift shop. And I’m all, like David Byrne saying: this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. And I ask myself: How did I get here? Hold on to the center. Does the Center Hold? Yeats said the center cannot hold. Lao Tzu says to hold on to it. Somewhere between those two instructions is my entire life as a Gen X metaphor. When Yeats wrote that, Europe was still shaking off a pandemic and a world war. When I say it, I’m just trying to remember my passwords and keep ICE agents from raiding my neighbor’s block. Different century, same collapse. Maybe we should quit Yeats—he’s been doom-tweeting from beyond the grave for a hundred years. But then again, maybe he was right to panic. Things do fall apart. The feed never stops turning. The falcon can’t hear the falconer because it’s wearing AirPods at a Tesla charging station, and the algorithm’s feeding it Joe Rogan crypto sermons and anti-woke protein ads. (breath — half-laugh) The Tao doesn’t take sides. That line wrecks me. …It’s like the lesson from Chapter 4 — the Tao is a bottomless well; the more you draw from it, the clearer it gets. If I’m not taking sides, does that make me a Buddha on buffering in a fascist livestream? Anti-war. Anti-ICE. Anti-bullshit. Gen X was a reflex of resistance — we thought refusal was freedom. But if everything’s a side, who’s holding the center? Lao Tzu throws down a cosmic curveball: the Master welcomes saints and sinners. Meanwhile, I’m over here running spiritual security like a bouncer at the Club of Righteous Indignation. Good vibes only — no Nazis, no negativity. And yet here comes the Tao at last call, hugging everyone on the way out. ’Cause it knows: “Closing time — every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” (beat) The Tao is like a bellows. Empty yet infinitely capable. That’s also a pretty good description of my podcast metrics. You use it, it produces. You talk about it too much, it deflates. Monkey Mind chimes in: “Cool metaphor, Lloyd. Tell that to fascism.” Yeah. I know. But maybe that’s the trick. The bellows isn’t the fire. It’s the breath that feeds it. Without breath, there’s no heat at all. Maybe Yeats and Lao Tzu aren’t arguing — they’re harmonizing. Yeats warned the center can’t hold when every voice is a megaphone pointed at itself. Lao Tzu reminds us that the center isn’t a political position to defend; it’s a still point you return to when you forget how to breathe. So yeah — maybe the center can hold, but only if you stop trying to own it. Let’s test that theory. (breath) In through the nose… hold for five. Out through the mouth… hold for five. That pause between in and out? That’s the center. It holds every time — until you forget it’s there. In Season 1’s Gen X Manifesto I said we grew up believing refusal was freedom. But refusal without breath is just asphyxiation with principles. And maybe that’s what the Tao means by Hold on to the center. Not clutch it. Not weaponize it. Just remember where your breath lives when the world falls apart. So no, I won’t quit Yeats. I’ll just invite him to sit in silence for a minute. Because even the poet of apocalypse needs a nap. (Bell chime.) From the edge of empire and the center of self — this is The Tao of Lloyd