Author Jamie; Yuxi Edited
Some time ago, I was pondering a question: since "Heaven and Earth are not partial and treat all things as straw dogs," why is it that, in our world, there exists the notion of "hierarchy among people, with distinctions of high and low"? Zhuangzi said, "The sage does not die, and the great thief does not cease." In the ages before Yao, Shun, and Yu, people lived their lives freely, doing what they pleased, eating and drinking without restrictions, until a sage appeared. This sage began to preach about what he considered "good," "evil," "right," "wrong," "virtuous," and "wicked."
People then desperately started learning from the sage, not with the intention of becoming a sage but merely aspiring to be seen by the sage as a "good person," a "virtuous person," someone who does the right things. People abandoned their habits, regulated their behavior, and tried hard to learn from the sage.
Later on, who knows when it began, those who had wealth, positions, and land were labeled as having a good fate. People took this as their goal, and the more of these things one possessed, the more noble their destiny. The "remaining good fortune of a virtuous family" was defined as copper coins.
In modern times, this trend has intensified. Whoever has money is considered to have a higher status. Beijing wasn't the first city to loosen its control; Shijiazhuang and Baoding were, but people didn't care; they only cared about Beijing. Perhaps, by this standard, the lives of the lords within the Second Ring Road in Beijing are considered more auspicious. However, no one, like Zhuangzi, has truly questioned themselves: "Are you truly happy climbing within the rules fabricated by this sage? Do the rules he created really suit you?"
From the moment you were born, you enjoyed a carefree few years, not fully experiencing the joy between heaven, earth, and nature. Then, you were thrust into a place defined by the "sage," learning for thousands of years the unchanging notions of "good and evil, right and wrong." It continued to dictate how you should act, think, and contemplate. Anything against it would be labeled as "evil, wrong, bad, inferior." So, you ignorantly accepted it because the punishment for rebellion was too severe, too much for you to bear. After finishing university, you were thrown out like a product from a factory assembly line, packaged and placed on supermarket shelves, waiting for customers to choose you, take you home, and fulfill your mission. After working, most are assigned full schedules, merely obeying, or ambitiously, with aspirations of breaking free from the frame, wanting to become a prominent figure within the Second Ring Road in Beijing.
Perhaps many people never get a chance to escape this water. But I want to see the world beyond the river and canal dug out by the sage.
In this way, one rule after another, set by others, becomes like shackles, entwining your body, forcing you to move forward according to this template. From the start of schooling, being a good student is celebrated. After working, getting promotions and salary increases is being a good employee. After gaining money, having authority makes you a person of importance. When you become a person of importance, you will be happy... It seems this rule has no end, only an eternal and perpetual Möbius strip of suffering. You might realize it, or you might not. Those who recognize it sometimes pretend not to, avoiding becoming a "Socratic figure of suffering," but these shackles remain locked within the heart. Various constraints and frameworks multiply.
Therefore, this person, you, and I find it increasingly difficult to be happy.
In the "Zhuangzi: The Great and Venerable Master" section, there's a story I particularly like. Four friends—Zishi, Ziyu, Zili, and Zilai—were very close. One day, Ziyu fell ill, and Zishi went to visit him. Zishi said, "What do you dislike?" Ziyu replied, "Dislike? I have nothing to dislike! I gradually pretended to transform my left arm into a chicken and sought chickens at the appropriate times during the night; I pretended to transform my right arm into a slingshot and sought owls for roasting. I pretended to transform my buttocks into a wheel and my spirit into a horse, and I sought to ride it. Why should I change that? The one who gains is merely following the times, and the one who loses is merely conforming. To be at ease with the times and follow the flow, joy and sorrow cannot enter. This is what the ancients called 'freedom,' but those who cannot free themselves are ensnared. And since things are not prevailing over heaven, what is there to dislike?"
Ziyu doesn't care whether he becomes a chicken, a slingshot, or Ziyu. Whether it's Ziyu, a chicken, or a slingshot, they are all products within this universe. "The one who gains is merely following the times, and the one who loses is merely conforming. To be at ease with the times and follow the flow" is sufficient. Why attach so much importance to these things? It's only what the sage has prescribed, but is what the sage prescribes always right? "Has it always been this way, then is it correct?"
Even the sage once said, "Those who wander outside are like you, and I wander inside. The outside and inside do not intersect. Yet, I, in sending you to console them, am narrow-minded! *Those who wander outside with the Maker of Things as their companion roam in the unity of heaven and earth's breath. Those who take life as an appendage, festering with warts and pustules, and death as a bursting abscess, are in desperate straits. When it is like this, how can one know the origin of life and death? They borrow from others, rely on themselves; forget their liver and gall, neglect their ears and eyes; back and forth, beginning to end, not knowing where it stops; blindly wandering outside the dirt, carefree in the business of doing nothing."
He also envies the clear moon and the gentle wind, living a carefree life in the midst of this turbid world.