There is a line from the Tao Te Ching that used to confuse me: "Heaven and Earth are not kind. They treat all things like straw dogs."
Straw dogs were ritual offerings in ancient China—woven from straw, treated with reverence during the ceremony, then discarded and trampled afterward. The point is not cruelty. It is indifference. Heaven and Earth do not play favorites. The mountain does not care if you are brave. The river does not care if you are kind. The storm does not spare the good person or punish the bad one. It just is.
I thought about this line for years. It felt cold. Even harsh. Why would anyone find comfort in a universe that does not care?
Then I started hangboarding.
What Is a Hangboard?
For those who do not climb: a hang board is a block of hardwood mounted to a wall. It has shallow edges of different depths—measured in millimeters—and small pockets for one, two, three, or four fingers. You grab an edge, lift your feet, and hold on. That is all.
No encouragement. No mercy. No opinion about who you are or what you have been through.
The hanging board treats everyone the same. The sponsored athlete and the weekend warrior. The person who made every right choice and the person whose life is a collage of regrets. When your feet leave the ground, the board does not ask about your past. It only asks: Can you hold on right now?
That is not cruelty. That is honesty.
The Indifference That Sets You Free
We are used to a world that judges. Social media likes. Performance reviews. The endless measuring of whether we are good enough, fast enough, successful enough. And when we carry regrets—missed opportunities, wrong turns, words left unsaid—that judgment feels personal. I failed because I was not good enough.
But the climbing hangboard does not judge. It is not kind, but it is also not cruel. It is simply indifferent. And that indifference, strangely, is a form of freedom.
You cannot bargain with the board. You cannot charm it with your good intentions or your sad story. It does not care that you had a hard year. It does not care that you are trying your best. It only responds to what you actually do. Right now. With your fingers on the edge.
This is exactly what the Tao Te Ching describes. Heaven and Earth do not reward virtue or punish vice. The sun rises on the just and the unjust. The rain falls on the grateful and the bitter. The hangboard holds you if you grip it—and drops you if you do not. No grudge. No favor. No memory of your last attempt.
What This Means for Regret
I have regrets. You probably do too. Chances we did not take. People we did not love well enough. Versions of ourselves we left behind in the wrong decade.
For a long time, I thought regret meant that the universe was keeping score. That every wrong turn had set me back permanently. That I was playing catch‑up with an invisible judge who had already decided I was not enough.
But the climbing hang board taught me otherwise.
The board does not subtract points for past failures. It does not give you a lighter edge because you had a difficult childhood. It does not make the holds deeper because you already missed your chance at love or money or the career you dreamed of.
Every session starts at zero. Your past does not count. Your regrets do not weigh anything. The only thing that matters is whether you show up today and hang.
That is not cold. That is the most liberating truth I have ever found.
The Brush as Kindness You Create
If the climbing hangboard represents the indifferent universe—the "Heaven and Earth" that treat all things like straw dogs—then the brush represents what we do in response.
The Two Stones brush is a small, humble tool. A wooden handle. Hybrid bristles. You use it to clean holds before you climb. Not because the hold asked to be cleaned. Not because the rock cares. But because you choose to care.
The universe may be indifferent. But you do not have to be.
Every time you brush a hold for the next climber—someone you will never meet, who will never thank you—you are adding a small patch of kindness to an otherwise neutral world. You are saying: I cannot change the indifference of Heaven and Earth. But I can make this one hold a little cleaner for the person after me.
That is how you face regret. Not by begging the universe to rewrite your past. But by showing up today, cleaning what you can, and trying again. Not for a reward. Not because anyone is watching. Just because that is what a person does when they stop expecting the world to be kind and start being kind themselves.
Straw Dogs and Second Attempts
The straw dogs in the Tao Te Ching are not thrown away out of malice. They are simply returned to the earth. No longer sacred. Not cursed either. Just straw again.
Your regrets are like that. The choices you missed. The person you did not become. They are not punishments. They are not permanent stains. They are just past moments that have returned to the neutral soil of time. Neither good nor evil. Just what happened.
And now? Your feet are on the ground. Your chalk bag is open. The climbing hangboard is waiting on the wall.
The universe does not care if you try again. It also does not care if you give up. That is the indifference of Heaven and Earth.
But you care. Or at least, a small part of you does. That part that buys a brush. That cleans a hold. That lifts its feet one more time even though no one is clapping.
That part is not indifferent. And that part is enough.
The Only Move That Matters
So here is what I have learned from the Tao Te Ching, a piece of wood, and a small brush:
The world will not save you. It will not punish you either. It just is.
Your regrets do not impress the hangboard. Your apologies do not move the rock. Your self‑pity does not make the edges deeper.
But your actions? Your quiet, unglamorous, repeated actions? They are the only thing that has ever mattered.
Show up. Chalk your fingers. Lift your feet. Hang for one more second than you think you can.
The board does not care. But you will. And that is the whole point.
Now go hang. The straw dogs are watching. Or rather—they are not. And that is exactly why you are free.