What is long should not be regarded as
too long,
nor what is short too short.

A ducks legs, for instance, are short,
but if we try to lengthen them
it would pine;
A crane’s legs are long,
but if we try to lop them off
it would grieve.
Where is a part is long by nature,
we are not to cut it;
where it is by nature short
we are not to lengthen it.

There will be no need for concern or anxiety.

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou trans. by Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, Webbed Toes

There’s more, part 2 from the Webbed Toes chapter.

Judgments come to mind as if out of nowhere. As if a unchanging standard has been ordained by “the gods”, given to us so that we “just know” that something is too long or too short, too much or too little.

A moment of reflection is called for. There is no eternal, or universal standard of the sort! (Moses has not descended the mountain bearing “the rule”) As for judgments, and nearly every utterance, every thought entails a judgment – we are on our own. So what happens? We have unconsciously, from childhood onward reflexively adopted the estimations of “too little and too much” of our fellows, of the society around us.

Does the duck appear to have legs that are too short? It does. But not if the duck could speak!

Have you by chance viewed at distance a blue heron wading in the shallow edge of the river? Does the bird have legs that are too long? If the heron could speak, what would it say? Too long? Just right!

What do the judgments which you and I make have to do with ourselves? Likely, nothing at all. Judgments borrowed, threadbare and second hand, passed down generation to generation…

In regard to keen judgments about sound (music) or visual appearance (design and color) Zhuang Zhou has this to say:

When I regard men as having a keen sense of hearing,
I do not mean that they listen to anything else
but to themselves.

When I regard men as having a clear vision,
I do not mean that they look at anything else
but at themselves.

This song merits consideration! Mystify by INXS.