21 December 2019

Life lesson from a twisted tree

"The twisted tree lives its life, while the right tree ends up as planks."
"... paraphrased from the Book of Chuang Tzu, the second major text of Taoism. Taoism is a critique of the more mainstream ideals of Confucianism. In the original text the twisted tree story has less to do with “individualism” and more to do with Taoism’s rejection of duality. The twisted tree is so useless that it’s useful, because it’s the only tree left to offer shade after all the others are cut down. Ergo, the duality between useful and useless (and, by extension, all things) is an illusion. Many Taoist verses are thought experiments driving at this same conclusion."

3 comments:

  1. Al margen del taoísmo, creo que la naturaleza nos enseña los cambios de la vida en la tierra. llamada mundo.

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  2. Is Chuang Tzu's the Twisted Tree suggesting we should live a twisted, crooked, skewed life?

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    Replies
    1. Are you suggesting the contrary - that we should live a life narrowly down the middle, never deviating from a set plan from childhood until death. ?

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