Benefit Of Uselessness
A (master) mechanic, called Shih,
on his way to Khî, came to Khü yüan,
where he saw an oak tree,
which was used as the altar for the spirits of the land.
It was so large
that an ox standing behind it
could not be seen.
It measured a hundred spans round,
and rose up eighty cubits on the hill
before it threw out any branches,
after which there were ten or so,
from each of which a boat could be hollowed out.
People came to see it in crowds as in a market place,
but the mechanic did not look round at it,
but held on his way without stopping.
One of his workmen, however,
looked long and admiringly at it,
and then ran on to his master, and said to him,
‘Since I followed you with my axe and bill,
I have never seen such a beautiful mass of timber as this.
Why would you, Sir, not look round at it, but went on without stopping?’
‘Have done,’ said Mr. Shih, ‘and do not speak about it.
It is quite useless. A boat made from its wood would sink;
a coffin or shell would quickly rot;
an article of furniture would soon go to pieces;
a door would be covered with the exuding sap;
a pillar would be riddled by insects;
the material of it is good for nothing,
and hence it is that it has attained to so great an age.’
…the trees of the mountain bring their own destruction.
The oil in the lamp burns itself.
The cinnamon tree is edible, so it is cut down.
The varnish tree is useful, so it is cut apart.
All men know the advantage of being useful,
but no one knows the advantage of being useless.’
Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. by James Legge, Hyun Hochsmann, Yang Guorong
Starbucks was quite crowded this morning. I do not know understand the cause. I sit in my usual place in the back corner. I concentrated upon the Taoist text, and my mind edits out the hub-bub of the room. “Reality” is a fabrication of the mind. You are likely to disagree. It is likely everyone in this room would disagree with me.
I considered my assumption that ancient societies were benighted, populated with very few literate, a majority, peasants working the ground with pointed sticks, etc., etc.. I think this is a contemporary American prejudice rooted in ignorance of history. Just because a society transports goods by two wheeled carts does not mean business owners, and tradespeople were not capable of sophisticated thought.
This Taoist parable is reminiscent of the 1998 Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski. Namely, “abiding”, to simply “be” is sufficient justification for a good life. A capitalist POV goes to great lengths to refuse this version of reality.
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One thought on “Benefit Of Uselessness”
If anyone “out there” were to have a salient conversation with either of us and they were open to learning and understanding, they might find that the argument that “Reality is a fabrication of the mind” is irrefutable. It becomes crystal clear that our connection to our environment is through our five senses and those senses are flawed beyond measure giving us only subjective glimpses of the real world. We then interpret the data through a gauntlet of lifelong experiences, genetic predisposition, and cultural biases. All of this leads to that individual’s skewed interpretation of everything that goes on around us. Someone may argue against this construct, but they would have to use magical notions to refute this obvious, concrete fact. And then their argument is lost, at least rationally.
On the other hand, if we can accept our limitations and understand that our vision of the world is flawed, we can begin having conversations taking that perspective into account and begin to learn. To be open to greater understanding that we can, very slowly, garner a less subjective point of view and move, as best we can, towards a form of communication that would allow us to approach a vastly different and much more positive direction. It’s up to all of us to move the needle.