Crippled Shu
What if the flaw you most want to hide is quietly protecting you?
Original
支離疏者，頤隱於臍，肩高於頂，會撮指天，五管在上，兩髀為脅。挫鍼治繲，足以餬口；鼓筴播精，足以食十人。上徵武士，則支離攘臂而遊於其間；上有大役，則支離以有常疾不受功；上與病者粟，則受三鍾與十束薪。夫支離其形者，猶足以養其身，終其天年，又況支離其德者乎！
In plain words
There was a man called Crippled Shu. His chin was tucked below his navel, his shoulders rose above his head, his topknot pointed at the sky, his organs sat on top and his thighs pressed against his ribs. Sewing and washing clothes, he earned enough to feed himself; winnowing and sifting grain, enough to feed ten. When the state called up soldiers, Shu strolled among them, sleeves rolled up. When there was heavy labour, he was exempted for his chronic condition. When the state gave grain to the sick, he received three measures of rice and ten bundles of firewood. If a man whose body is scattered can still support himself and live out his natural years, how much more a man whose virtue is scattered!
Key words
- 支离zhī líScattered, out of shape, not in the usual form.
- 终其天年zhōng qí tiān niánTo live out the years heaven gave you.
- 支离其德zhī lí qí déNot clinging to the world's model of virtue; not trying to stand out.
Reading it step by step
Zhuangzi's book is full of people with strange bodies: hunchbacks, men missing a foot, people shockingly ugly. Today's man may be the most extreme of all. It takes five lines just to describe what he looks like.
Why write him like that? Let's take it in three steps.
First: what the world calls a defect becomes his protection. When the army calls up soldiers, he doesn't go. When the state demands heavy labour, he doesn't go. When the state hands out relief, he gets a share. It's the straight-backed, able-bodied young men who are marched off to war. It's the same idea as the big tree on Day 5 that nobody bothered to cut down: the most “useful” things get used up first.
Second: he doesn't live on pity. Don't skip the earlier lines. Sewing and washing feed him; winnowing grain feeds ten people. Shu has a trade and a living. He simply doesn't measure up on the world's ruler. Zhuangzi isn't praising disability. He's saying that the ruler other people use to measure you isn't the only ruler there is.
Third: scattered virtue. The last line is the point. If a scattered body can still live out its years in peace, what about someone whose virtue is scattered? Someone who doesn't squeeze into the world's mould of “good person” or “capable person,” who doesn't perform, who isn't in a hurry to prove how moral or talented they are. In troubled times, that person keeps themselves whole, and is freer too.
So today, think of the thing you like least about yourself. Maybe it has cost you something. Has it also kept you out of something?
Where you don't measure up is often where you're free.
Where you don't measure up is often where you're free.
Today's question
Write down one “flaw” you're often criticised for. What has it ever kept you out of?
Quick check
What does “scattered virtue” come closest to?
A scattered body still lives out its years; a person free of the world's mould does even better.
Go deeper
Want the full classroom? Here is the matching lecture from National Taiwan University OpenCourseWare (in Mandarin).
II · Fasting of the Heart — Make room in the heart