Spending Half My Remaining Years in the Library
The craftsman Shi went to Qi, and when he reached Quyuan, he saw an oak tree at the shrine. Its crown could shade several thousand oxen; measuring it, it was a hundred spans around; it rose eight hundred feet above the hill before branching, and of the boughs that could make a boat there were ten or more. Onlookers thronged like a market, but the master craftsman did not even glance at it and walked on without stopping.
His apprentice gazed his fill, then ran after Shi, saying: "Since I took up my axe to follow you, master, I have never seen timber so fine. Yet you refuse to look and walk on without stopping. Why?" Shi replied: "Enough! Say no more! That is a useless tree. Make a boat of it and it sinks; make a coffin and it rots quickly; make a vessel and it breaks quickly; make a door and it oozes sap; make a pillar and worms eat it. It is worthless wood. Of no use at all—that is why it has lived so long."
When Shi returned home, the shrine oak appeared in a dream and said: "What would you compare me to? Would you compare me to those useful trees? The crabapple, pear, orange, pomelo, and other fruit trees—when their fruit ripens they are knocked and stripped, and are mishandled; their great boughs break, their small boughs are twisted. This is because their usefulness makes their lives bitter; therefore they do not live out their natural span but die midway, striking themselves down at the hands of the world. All things are like this. And I have long sought to be useless! I nearly died, but only now have achieved it; being useless is of the greatest use to me. If I had been useful, could I have grown so great? Moreover, you and I are both things; how can you things judge other things? You, a useless man about to die—how should you know useless trees?"
The craftsman awoke and told his dream. His apprentice said: "If it aimed at being useless, why did it become a shrine tree?" Shi said: "Hush! Say no more! It merely lodged there! It is misunderstood by those who revile it. Had it not been a shrine tree, it would have been cut down! Moreover, what it preserves is not what others preserve; to explain it with ordinary reason—isn't that far off!"
— Zhuangzi, "In the Human World"
This passage from Zhuangzi is my favorite. When I read Zhuangzi in high school and came to this passage, I slapped the table in admiration. Now, at forty-five, reading Zhuangzi again and reaching this passage, I feel an indescribable sense of kinship.
In this chapter Zhuangzi tells a story. A carpenter traveling to Qi saw by the road a giant oak tree that people treated as a shrine tree (a tree with ritual significance). The carpenter's apprentice thought it was fine timber, but the carpenter did not even glance at it; the apprentice asked why. The carpenter said the tree looked big, but it was big and useless, fit for nothing. As a boat it was too heavy; as a coffin it would rot; as furniture it would break; as a door it would decay; as a beam it would be worm-eaten. So it was worthless wood.
That evening, back home, the carpenter dreamed that the great oak came to reason with him: if I were useful, I would have died young; it is precisely because I am useless that I have lived so long. You who think yourself useful look down on me, worthless tree—but who knows that you, like those useful trees, are the ones who, precisely because they are useful, hardly live out their natural span!
The carpenter found the dream strange and discussed it with his apprentices. The apprentice said: if this tree pursues uselessness, why become a shrine tree? The carpenter said: that is precisely the tree's cleverness. Call it useless, and yet it is a little useful—being a shrine tree is its use, so it avoids being cut down. Call it useful, and yet it is useless. It lives between the useful and the useless, carefree and happy!
What I have pursued my whole life is this middle state. Call me useful, and I am not fit for great tasks, not presentable in grand halls; call me useless, and yet I have some practical value. Mingling in the crowd, I seek neither fame nor success, and avoid standing out. Neither outstanding nor obscure. In the folksy saying of my hometown: "Beg a little rice, scrape by a mouthful"—never rich, but never starving. With a skill to rely on, no empty titles. I need no fine clothes and fine horses to go out, nor need I be obsequious at home. Striving to live freely out my natural span, doing in life the things I like—that is my life goal.
Over seven years ago, someone told me that I was like a big tree near the National Library—a big, useless, worthless tree. I really like this metaphor. Baidu Maps shows my home is only 2.0 km from the National Library. Crossing Purple Bamboo Bridge just outside the West Third Ring Road, entering Zizhuyuan Park, enjoying the park scenery along the way, listening to the folk artists play and perform, and feasting the eyes, I arrive directly at the National Library, separated only by a river (in some places a railing). The whole trip takes about half an hour. Spend a morning reading there; when hungry, return the same way and cook a simple meal at home.
Half of each day is spent in this way, and the other half on work and chores. This has been my daily life for most of the time since I came to Beijing from my hometown. Before 2016, year after year, day after day, I lived just like this. After that, imperceptibly, my work grew busy and my social engagements increased, and gradually I spent less time at the library. After the pandemic, for epidemic-prevention reasons, I barely set foot in the National Library.
Recently, having gathered my spirits, I have returned to this way of life. I must admit that studying in the library reading room is a bit more efficient than studying at home. The National Library reading room is always crowded, but despite the crowds the readers are of high quality and it is perfectly quiet. Everyone comes in to bury themselves in reading or writing. This is currently China's largest library and also China's best wall-free university. However rich one's home library, it cannot hold a candle to the National Library's holdings.
This is the greatest benefit the state gives us readers; the National Library is now free to all Chinese residents. The new reading building on South Zhongguancun Avenue is designed like a giant book, with excellent lighting, good winter heating and summer air-conditioning. To sit here reading or studying is truly a rare pleasure.
My kind of "worthless tree" loves nothing more than reading; spending every day here is truly being in my element. I was never interested in tourism; now that I have traveled to quite a few places, I am even less interested. Once or twice a year accompanying family on a trip is enough. I have a small vegetable plot at the foot of Fragrant Hills; last year I rented 40 square meters. This year I halved the plot to 20 square meters, and the rent dropped from four thousand to two thousand. I plan to go two or three times a week after spring begins, spending two or three hours each time to adjust my mood.
The rest of my spare time I spend in the library. One Zizhuyuan Park, one National Library, plus my small home study, is enough to make an inward-living person like me perfectly content. A small vegetable plot is also enough to vary my daily life. I have gradually adapted to this Beijing life; it has already become my ideal state, and I no longer think of returning to my hometown in old age to lead a farming-and-reading life. Because my hometown has been ruled by mahjong; when I go back to that familiar-yet-strange environment, there is much I cannot adapt to.
At my age, I have pretty much seen life clearly. I know that while caring for others, the most important thing is to care for oneself and satisfy one's truest needs. My truest need is not to struggle, not to stand out, nor to seek the Way, not to seek others' approval and praise, not to seek pleasure and drunkenness, but to enjoy the delight my personal hobbies bring, to enjoy a quiet, joyful, simple life. At the same time, to use, in moderation, the knowledge and skills I have learned to help people destined to cross my path, in exchange for a little living income.
So in the rest of my life I need neither put on airs nor feign lofty detachment, neither strive tirelessly nor eat idly waiting for death and chase the waves. Living between the useful and the useless, I will read if I love reading, write if I love writing; whether my works survive to later ages, let it take its course. My pen writes my heart; I came naked, and I will go naked. Returning to the state I was in at twenty-something, in the library with China's richest holdings, I will read to my heart's content every book I like—not for a degree, not for a title, not to please a beauty, not for money or social standing, but solely for my own delight, untethered, unobstructed, free and easy. Is this not a joy!