The Useless Tree

Book News: The China Digital Times Interview and the "Useless Tree" story

Some of you may have already seen this, but I wanted to mention it here as well: Natalie Ornell, a writer for China Digital Times did an interview with me that is posted over at their site. Thanks for the good questions and the interest in the book!

One query picked up on one of my favorite Zhuangzi stories, and the inspiration for this blog's title:

CDT: Early in your book, you explain the Zhuangzi story about the useless tree, which is also the name of your blog, in order to introduce what ancient Chinese philosophy can do for modern American life. You explain that there is a tree which everyone deems useless but it ends up providing a shade which becomes useful to all. By not seeing this trees’ utility, we fail in our aspirations. If the tree, and everything else in life, have always been useful, why continue to use the word “useless”?

SC: Zhuangzi here, as in so much of his writing, is giving us a meta-argument. He’s undermining our conventional notions of useless. Our minds are filled with all sorts of humanly-created understandings of utility, and those are very much the target of Zhuangzi’s stories: we have to let go of our preconceptions of useful or good or happy and open ourselves to the natural unfolding of things. If we do that, we will experience new expressions of all of these values, expressions that are neither forced nor artificial nor false.

More could be said about the "useless tree," so let me say a bit more here.  Way back on July 1, 2005, the very first day of this blog, I put up a post, "Why 'Useless Tree?'," where I copy the Lin Yutang translation one version of the story and make a brief comment that it helped me in my understanding of Aidan's life.  Indeed, on of the first things I wrote about Aidan, an op-ed in the New York Times, was originally supposed to have the title "Against Productivity," which in itself, I had hoped, would be an allusion to the "useless tree."  Unfortunately, the editors changed the title to "Productive in his Own Way," deflecting the full force of the main point. 

The useless tree story was central to my book, Aidan's Way.  I use it as a preface and then return to it at the very end.  There I suggest that there are three distinct messages that Zhuangzi derives from the useless tree metaphor:

    - If you have no use, you have no grief.

    - Everyone knows that to be useful is useful, but who knows how useful it is to be            useless?

    - Look, it isn't like the rest of us: it's harboring something utterly different. If we               praise it for its practicality, we'll miss the point altogether, won't we?

The latter take is my preferred one. The other two are still using some notion of utility to justify uselessness.  But in the third, Zhuangzi is asking us to let go of our understanding of usefulness and embrace the possibility of the useless on its own terms.  We don't need to justify it, but just recognize and accept it.  Instead of using the useful to understand the useless, we should use the useless to transform our understanding beyond the useful.

Otherwise: ...we'll miss the point altogether, won't we?

Birthday Thoughts

     Today is Aidan's birthday.
 
     He would have been twenty-two.

     As I think about his life, and what he gave to me, a passage from Zhuangzi comes to mind.  Without him, I would not have the understanding of this passage that I now have.  It is his gift to me and, so, I post it here as a birthday present for all.

Sufficient because "sufficient."  Insufficient because "insufficient."  Traveling the Way makes it Dao.  Naming things makes them real.  Why real?  Real because "real." Why nonreal? Nonreal because "nonreal."  So the real is originally there  in things, and the sufficient is originally there in things.  There's nothing that is not real, and nothing that is not sufficient.

Hence, the blade of grass and the pillar, the leper and the ravishing [beauty], the noble, the sniveling, the disingenuous, the strange - in Dao they all move as one and the same.  In difference is the whole; in wholeness is the broken.  Once they are neither whole nor broken, all things move freely as one and the same again.

Only one who has seen through things understands moving freely as one and the same.  In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions, you dwell in the ordinary.  To be ordinary is to be self-reliant; to be self-reliant is to move freely; to move freely is to arrive.  That's almost it, because to arrive is to be complete.  But to be complete without understanding how - that is called Dao.

Another Daoist Thanksgiving

Been very busy of late, with little time to blog.  But here is one from the archives on my favorite holiday:

It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here [2005] in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

   Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

     A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

     It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

     But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.  Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many things I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

Twenty Years

Today is Aidan's twentieth birthday.  His memory still animates my being, his presence, even in absence, a continuing creator of of my life's course.  It was Aidan who led me into ancient Chinese philosophy, especially an appreciation of Daoism, and that is something that shapes my daily experience.

I was reading the Daodejing with my students a couple of weeks ago.  Many of them seemed perplexed.  They found the text abstruse and irrelevant.  How could a stance of "do nothing" - wuwei - make any sense in their busy and well planned lives? But it was precisely that orientation - yielding to the unfolding of circumstances beyond my control - that I came to embrace as Aidan's life progressed.  I learned to let go of expectations and explanation and simply, as Zhuangzi puts it, "dwell in the ordinary." 

As my students worked to gain some understanding of passage 29 of the Daodejing, I quietly reflected on the meaning Aidan provided for me:

Longing to take hold of all beneath heaven and improve it... I've seen such dreams invariably fail.  All beneath heaven is a sacred vessel, something beyond all improvement.  Try to improve it and you ruin it.  Try to hold it and you lose it.

For things sometimes lead and sometimes follow, sometimes sigh and sometimes storm, sometimes strengthen and sometimes weaken, sometimes kill and sometimes die.

And so the sage steers clear of extremes, clear of extravagance, clear of exaltation.

I came to learn that a profoundly disabled boy was beyond all improvement.

Remembering Aidan at Angkor Thom

Today, March 19th, we went to Angkor Thom, one of the many temple complexes in and around Siem Reap.  Whlie there I lit an incense stick in memory of Aidan.  The Buddha watches over him.  Here is the spot:

 

 

 

Those You've Known

Today is Aidan's birthday.  His nineteenth birthday.  The day confronts me with my many selves, one of which is father of a disabled child and another of which is father of a child passed away.  The past infuses the present, my various selves (and there are many others besides) collide in sadness and joy...

This weekend I traveled to my thrity-fifth high school reunuion (and glimpsed a shadow of yet another self).  On the ride there I listened to the sound track to the show Spring Awakenings.  One of the songs is paraticularly apt for today, and the past few days, as it is a meditation on loss and grief and going on with life.  "Those You've Known" is a haunting tune.  The lyrics start out sad, a young man grieving the death of his friends, contemplating taking his own life.  But it comes around to a resolution to live.  And that resolution is built upon carrying forth the thoughts of those we've known.  These lines capture that purpose:

Now they'll walk on my arm through the distant night
And I won't let them stray from my heart
Through the wind, through the dark, through the winter light
I will read all their dreams to the stars

I'll walk now with them
I'll call on their names
And I'll see their thoughts are known
Not gone, not gone

They walk with my heart, not gone
And I'll never let them go, not gone
I'll never let them go, not gone
I'll never let them go

That pretty much sums up this day for me: I'll see his thoughts known, I'll read his dreams to the stars...

Here's the song, and below the fold the complete lyrics of the song:

 

Big Questions Online

A new e-zine, Big Questions Online, opened today and I have a piece there, The Tao of Aidan.   Thanks to Rod Dreher for the opportunity to tell my son's story again. 

Thoughts on March 19th

Three years ago today Aidan died.

Passage 11 of the Daodejing is turning in my head today;

Thirty spokes gathered at each hub:
absence makes the cart work.
A storage jar fashioned our of clay:
absence makes the jar work.
Door and windows cut in a house:
absence makes the house work.

Presence give things their value,
but absence makes them work.

Aidan's presence certainly gave my life a new value, and his absence continues to animate me.

Happy New Year: Why I Write

My mother used to say that you should do on New Year's Day those things you want to do for the whole year.  I did some of them today.  I walked the dogs with my wife.  I cooked (did an eggplant Parmesan, something I haven't done for years...).  I had some fun exchanges with my daughter.  Tonight I will get back to the book I am writing (did I say that my New Year's resolution is to finish the book?).  I did not grade!  I am blogging.

Work on the book has been sporadic, at best, in the past year.  I made a lot of headway in Fall, 2007, when I was on leave.  But 2008 turned out to be quite busy: teaching and the summer program I run.  I am re-dedicating myself to the project now.  And I was helped in this yesterday, when I received an email that reminded me of why I write.  Or, to put more of a point on it, someone sent me a note that exemplified the continuing reward I reap from Aidan's Way.  Here's the text of the message:

Dear Professor Crane:
I am in my office cleaning out files--an end of the year ritual that I
generally despise, except in those rare instances when I find something
I saved and the reason for saving it is so apparent. Such is the case
with an op ed piece you wrote for  the NY Times ten years.  Your article
dealt with your son and the concept of productivity. My daughter is a
young woman who is severely mentally retarded.  Like your son, she
inspires me and my family and all who meet her.  I know why I saved your
article and it is going back in the file to be found again.  Thank you
for allowing me to end 2008 on such a beautiful note.
Regards,

He is referring to this piece, which was published in November, 1998.   I responded to say how I am gratified I am to know that Aidan's life, and the things he taught me, still radiate out into the world.  I doubt I will ever receive a return anything like that with anything else I write.  But, ultimately, it is that kind of connection, that kind of effect, that inspires me.  That is why I write.

Happy New Year.

Taoist Thanksgiving Thoughts

Back in 2005, when this blog was only a few months old, I wrote a post, "A Taoist Thanksgiving," which I have returned to over the years.  It places my son, Aidan, who died two and a half years ago, at the center of my thinking that day.  I reproduce the pose below both as a reminder of what we might give thanks for, and as a remembrance of Aidan:

It is a perfect Thanksgiving morning here in Northwestern Massachusetts: a light snow, about 2 inches on the ground; a chill air; great conditions to be inside and cooking and eating all day.  Aidan and I are here by ourselves, however.  Maureen and Maggie are down in New York City, attending the famous parade.  So, we will do the whole feast thing tomorrow.  Today will be just about pie baking: I have a couple of small pumpkins to bake and make into a pie.  If I feel ambitious, perhaps an apple pie will follow.  That will make the house warm and comfortable.

     We are supposed to be thankful today, and I am.  But as I give thanks I can't help wondering: for what am I giving thanks and to whom?  As is my want, I fall back on Taoism to help clarify my thoughts.  And, through that exercise, I come to a somewhat startling realization: I give thanks for Aidan and his profound disability.  I know that sounds a bit bizarre - how could a parent be thankful for a child's disability? - but, as I think through it, I am happy to say that I am. 

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

   Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

     A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

     It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

     But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.  Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many things I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let's think more generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

   Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a Taoist would recognize the one's subordination to Tao.  But would a Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist can be grateful - and, indeed, can be happily enchanted - to witness or sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like the vibrant child...
      - Tao Te Ching 55

     A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

     It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

     But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own, unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive infant who can "embody Integrity's abundance."  It is, after all, our human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere), if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.  Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that many things I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound disability.