The Great Use of Uselessness

answered by Zhuangzi, "In the World of Men"

기원전 4세기경

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

dir. Miloš Forman · USA

In a psychiatric ward run by strict discipline, a new patient cracks the conformity the system demands, through laughter and disruption. Conformity offers safety, but that safety comes at the cost of erasing the self.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

If conformity is survival itself, what is resistance for?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

山木自寇也，膏火自煎也。桂可食，故伐之；漆可用，故割之。人皆知有用之用，而莫知無用之用也。

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

The mountain tree brings the axe upon itself; the grease of the lamp brings its own burning. The cinnamon tree is felled because it can be eaten; the lacquer tree is cut because it can be used. All people know the use of the useful, but none know the use of the useless.

💡 TL;DR

Zhuangzi observed that the more useful a tree is as timber, the sooner it is felled.

📝The Classic Answers

Zhuangzi observed that the more useful a tree is as timber, the sooner it is felled. Fitting neatly into the system, being shaped into something useful, is not always the safe path. The person who lets themselves be trimmed to fit the norm often breaks first, while the one who stands outside the norm making trouble is, in the end, what opens other people's eyes. Whenever conformity seems like the only path to survival, I ask again what the seemingly useless thing is actually protecting.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Take one thought or question you have suppressed today as 'useless,' and share it cautiously with at least one person.

📖 Classic Source: Zhuangzi, "In the World of Men". Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.