The Use of the Useless
What counts as “useful,” and who decides?
Original
惠子謂莊子曰：「吾有大樹，人謂之樗。其大本擁腫而不中繩墨，其小枝卷曲而不中規矩，立之塗，匠者不顧。今子之言，大而無用，眾所同去也。」莊子曰：「……今子有大樹，患其無用，何不樹之於無何有之鄉，廣莫之野，彷徨乎無為其側，逍遙乎寢臥其下？不夭斤斧，物無害者，無所可用，安所困苦哉！」
In plain words
Huizi said to Zhuangzi: “I have a big tree; people call it a stink-tree. Its trunk is so knotted no carpenter's line can mark it, its branches so twisted no square or compass fits them. It stands by the road and carpenters don't even look. Your words are the same: big and useless, and everyone walks away.” Zhuangzi said: “… You have a big tree and worry that it's useless. Why not plant it in the village of Nothing-at-All, in the wide and endless wilds, and wander idly beside it, and lie down at ease beneath it? No axe will cut it short, nothing will harm it. If it has no use, what is there to suffer over?”
Key words
- 樗chūTree-of-heaven: poor timber, no use to a carpenter.
- 无何有之乡wú hé yǒu zhī xiāngThe village of Nothing-at-All: a place, and a mind, not filled up by worldly uses.
- 有蓬之心yǒu péng zhī xīnA heart overgrown with weeds (Zhuangzi's jab at Huizi).
Reading it step by step
Huizi was Zhuangzi's best friend and favourite sparring partner: a former prime minister of Wei and a very practical man. Today he brings two problems.
Problem one: the giant gourd. The king gave him seeds, and they grew a gourd that held fifty pecks. Filled with water, it was too heavy to lift. Cut into a ladle, it was too big to fit anywhere. “It was useless, so I smashed it.”
Zhuangzi tells a story. A family in Song knew how to make a salve that kept hands from chapping, and for generations used it to bleach silk floss in cold water, earning a little. A traveller bought the recipe for a hundred pieces of gold and took it to the King of Wu. That winter Wu fought Yue on the water; Wu's soldiers kept their hands, won, and the traveller was given land. Same salve. One family bleached silk with it; one man earned a fief.
There are two ways of “using the great”: putting a small thing to a great use, like the salve; and putting a great thing to its proper great use. Why not tie the gourd to your waist and float down rivers and lakes? Zhuangzi ends by saying Huizi still has “a heart overgrown with weeds.”
Problem two: the big tree. Knotted trunk, twisted branches; carpenters don't look twice. Zhuangzi says: then plant it in the village of Nothing-at-All, stroll beside it, nap beneath it. Because it is useless, no axe comes for it.
This is not a lesson in doing nothing. It is a reminder that the ruler we use to measure “useful” is usually too small. A colleague who is bad at presentations, a “wasted” gap year, some trait of yours nobody rates: put it in a different place and it might be the tree everyone rests under.
Before calling something useless, check the size of your ruler.
Today's question
Write down one thing, person, or trait of yours you once judged “useless.” In a different setting, what might it be good for?
Quick check
What does the story of the hand salve show?
The difference lay entirely in how it was used.
Go deeper
Want the full classroom? Here is the matching lecture from National Taiwan University OpenCourseWare (in Mandarin).
Prologue · Free Wandering — A person can become great