A man of Zheng, called Huan,
studied his books in a place called Quishi.
In three years he became a Confucian scholar,
bringing benefits to the three classes of his family relations
as the yellow river extends its beneficial influence for nine li.

He encouraged his younger brother to study the doctrines of Mo,
which they debated together. His father always took
his brother’s side.

Ten years later, Huan killed himself.

Huan appeared to his father in a dream and said,
“It is I who guided your son to become a Mohist scholar.
Why do you not acknowledge this good deed?
I have become the fruit of Cypress in autumn.”

When creation [the tao] dispenses awards to men,
it is not in accordance with what they have achieved
but in accordance with what is heavenly within them.
This was how Huan’s brother was led to learn Mohism.
In maintaining that it was he who made his brother what he became
and in condemning his father, Huan was like the people of Qi
who try to keep others from the well while they are drinking from it.
It is said that in the present time all men are like Huan.

Those who have the characteristics of the tao
do not believe they possess the knowledge of them.
How much more could it be then with those who possess the tao?
The ancients regard people like Huan as those who escaped
the censure of heaven.

Zhuangzi trans. by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 32 Lie Yukou

This is a tale of two scholars, brothers. Huan was older, earning his Phd in Confucian studies. His achievement merited public recognition and his family benefited by extension. The younger man also became a scholar specializing in the rival school of thought called Mohism. (To learn more about these rival philosophies CLICK HERE.) As you might imagine the brothers had lively debate comparing and contrasting their areas of specialty. As the story goes, Dad often was on the side of the younger son. Do not assume the scene of friendly exchange of ideas in the kitchen was as it appears on the surface. Some ten years later Huan kills himself.

Then like Macbeth he appears in a dream but to his father. The elder son claims 100 percent credit for his brother’s professional success. Huan intends to shame his father. – “Can’t you see the credit is all mine?” the ghostly image demands.

The issue is brought forward in stark relief. Why did I “turn out” this way? Why does anyone become who they become?

The author of the story assumes a narrator’s voice in the green highlighted text. There is no reason whatsoever derived from what has been earned, from a just desert. You and I did NOTHING for which praise or blame can be assigned. Simply something within us, (you and I) as if assigned by fate served as a hinge directing us in the direction which life has taken us.

Huan doesn’t get it. The credit does not belong to Huan, no matter what Huan may believe. Why insist upon besmirching his father in the dream? With such an overweening need for the approval of others, Huan thinks he must necessarily deprive his father of any grain of satisfaction on account of his younger son. Huan after all, did commit suicide…

The punchline of the story has to do with mobilizing force to deprive others of resources/benefits that one currently enjoys. That is, to keep others away from the public well while one drinks his fill.

To think that I merit all of it, – and you, none…