In "Wandering Beyond," Zhuangzi tells a story about a great tree.
Huizi said to Zhuangzi: "I have a great tree — a tree of the ailanthus kind. Its trunk is so gnarled that no carpenter can measure it with a line. Its branches are so crooked that no carpenter can shape them with compass or square. It stands by the roadside, and no carpenter even glances at it. It is big, but useless."
Zhuangzi replied: "Why don't you plant it in the Village of Nowhere, in the wide wilderness of Never-What, and then go wandering beside it and lie resting beneath it?"
It will not be cut down by axes. Nothing will harm it. Precisely because it has "no use," it can grow freely, lush and abundant, and live out its natural years.
In the eyes of society, "useful" is what has value. Wood that can be made into tables is useful. Skills that earn money are useful. But Zhuangzi offered a radically different perspective:
Being "useless" is itself a great use — because it frees you from being exploited, consumed, or turned into a tool.
That great tree, precisely because it was "useless" to carpenters, could grow freely and enjoy its life. If it had been "useful," it would have been cut down long ago.
Applied to human life: when we relentlessly pursue being "useful" — useful skills, useful connections, useful labels — we are actually turning ourselves into tools.
Zhuangzi is not saying to never do anything useful. He is reminding us: beyond utility, there is a value that transcends it. The value of daydreaming, of doing nothing, of doing something purely for joy — these seemingly "useless" moments are precisely the freest parts of life.
Everyone knows the use of the useful. But no one knows the use of the useless.