Misfortune

...For traveling on water there's nothing like a boat. For traveling on land, there's nothing like a cart. But though a boat can go on water, if you try pushing it on land, you can push until you die and not go an inch. Aren't past an present like water and land? Aren't the states of Zhou and Lu like boats and carts? Those who insist on using the ways of Zhou in Lu might as well be pushing a boat on land. They exhaust themselves without success and bring certain misfortune on their heads. They do not know the directionless revolution that responds to things without tiring...

- Zhuangzi Ch. 14

Translation by Paul Kjellberg in Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Van Norden and Ivanhoe editors.

#DailyDao