Georgi Gardev

Some disclaimers:
1. I'm new to reading texts like this and this is waaay out of my comfort zone.
2. There's a good chance I'm just not at a place in life to comprehend/understand the text properly.
3. There was a language barrier, as I didn't find a good translation in my native Bulgarian.

With this in mind, here's some notes to hopefully help you if you're in my shoes.

tl;dr
1. Read Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English's version
2. Give it a chance, there is some wisdom to be found in the book

First, which translation you pick up matters.. A LOT! And it doesn't help that there's a ton of them. I started with Ursula Le Guin's version, but I quickly discarded it. It felt too prescriptive and like it romanticizes the source material. I don't think this is Tao Te Ching, this is what Ursula Le Guin wants to believe (or wants you to think?) Tao Te Ching is.

I jumped over to James Legge's version - and this time read the whole book. This version, and especially forewords, gave me a lot of good context on the history of the book, various ancient translations, a general explanation for how Laozi thinks of the Tao, and the approaches to translating and interpreting the source material. My understanding is that this translation tries to be as close to the source material as possible.
And... it seemed like a complete mess intertwined with some good ideas and a lot of gibberish. There are numerous instances where Legge admits in notes that Laozi is contradictory, doesn't make sense, etc. Some times Legge says things like “I will not attempt to explain this” (paraphrasing).

After that, I read (~80% of) Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English's version. This seems somewhere in between Ursula Le Guin and James Legge. It's written in more accessible English, and comparing to Legge's version it seems close-ish to the source material most of the time. The translators did change the tone a lot, but this allowed them to showcase the ideas more clearly. However, I cannot help it - if I assume Legge's version is closer to the source, I feel this version does a decent amount of gymnastics to give the text deeper meaning (I even wanna say “force deeper meaning into the text”). It almost completely replaces some of those gibberish-y/hard-to-translate/very abstract passages with alternatives I feel are interpretations of the source rather than the source itself.

Here's an example of why the translation you pick matters:

Fifty Six (James Legge):
He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.
He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others).

Fifty Six (J. English):
Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.
Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.

—

Some thoughts on the Tao itself:
1. The book does not explain a lot. Laozi seems even kinda protective of the knowledge, like he deliberately doesn't want to share it. He mostly teaches you in the style of ‘if you followed the Tao, this is what you would've done'. The Tao is amazing, all-knowing, and you should follow it, of course. If you do, everything will be great, if you don't - bad stuff happens. “My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practice; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practice them”. Sure.

2. The book teaches humility and humbleness, and reiterates on those to burn them in your head. This I appreciate very much, and the author found various ways to explain why humility and being humble is a good way to live life. It teaches about being kind to others and not being greedy. Good stuff.

3. The book teaches that not acting is good, and not knowing is good. You should strive to do nothing and learn nothing. This I cannot comprehend.

I will most likely go back to Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English's version sometime in the future, after some time passes. There is wisdom to be found in this version - even if their interpretation is not really what Laozi wrote, does it really matter?

Laozi says “The wise student hears of the Tao and practices it diligently. The average student hears of the Tao and gives it thought now and again. The foolish student hears of the Tao and laughs aloud”.
I guess I'm okay with being average.

As individual scenarios/stories, they would be 4.5-5 of 5.

As a book, it's more like a 3.5.

The scenarios in the book are very different and I found it hard to sit down and read more than a couple of them at a time. So much context switching :) Plus it was not exactly easy to read for me, the book explains a lot of concepts & ideas that require concentration to fully understand.

So at times I found it tedious to sit down and read for 30-40 mins. This book probably should not be read like this.

I strongly recommend that you read it, but be prepared to read question by question, or max 2 questions at a time.

Learned some things I didn't know.

The book has a bit of a strange tempo. Sometimes I needed a more in-depth explanation, and other times it felt long-winded.

“Looking more closely at Earth's atmospheric fingerprints, human biomarkers will also include sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, and other components of smog from the burning of fossil fuels. If the curious aliens happen to be socially, culturally, and technologically more advanced than we are, then they will surely interpret these biomarkers as convincing evidence for the absence of intelligent life on Earth.”

Incredibly useful and straight to the point. The book is organised very well - progressing through the engineering/management ladder, it starts with giving advice to engineers, then tech leads, managers, ..., and goes to CTO and beyond.

For each level, the author explains potential situations and problems you could face, gives suggestions and ideas for how to approach and solve them, and teaches you to evaluate/calibrate/improve yourself.

I suggest this to everyone who is a senior engineer or in engineering management at any level. Even when you're not reading about your own position, the author provides great perspective about what problems other people may be facing and how you could be helping them.

I expect I'll be rereading this (or at least some chapters) multiple times in the following years. 10/10

Listened to the audiobook narrated by Wil Wheaton.

30% cringe, 50% 80's references, 20% story.

The story itself is captivating, it's an easy and fun book to read.
A lot.. lot of cringe, especially in the first 6 chapters. If you manage to get through them it gets better.
And the 80's references - you might enjoy the book more if you get them, but they weren't my thing.