Human Nature

[Alan V]

I suspect my casualness and lack of expectations may in part be due to my Taoism.  One's philosophical outlook may play a role in steering one toward or away from misanthropy.

I was hoping wabi sabi ideas might moderate some of my current misanthropy, and they have up to a point.  People are imperfect and incomplete -- those are just facts to accept.

However, that does lead to blaming human nature rather than specific individuals for their failings.  It's not altogether an improvement of misanthropic perspectives, since it really doesn't make sense to say that people are "perfectly imperfect" as some do, or that they are really okay that way.  If anything, it makes people seem deterministic and tragic.

What specific Taoist ideas have you found helpful?  I recently reread Lao Tzu, and found his ideas even less helpful and more muddled than when I read them earlier in my life.  "Lack of expectations" sounds rather like stoicism and its determinism.