Zhuangzi and the Philosophy of Uselessness: The Art of Free Wandering
The idea that human life must always serve some greater purpose, be useful, and bring benefit is a hallmark of our times. However, according to the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, this utilitarian mindset carries the risk of turning people into mere tools, causing them to lose their own Way and live in constant anxiety. Zhuangzi does not oppose activity itself; rather, he argues that usefulness should not be the main goal of life. In this article, philosophy professor Helen De Cruz and associate professor of Chinese thought and culture Pauline Lee from Saint Louis University explain why Zhuangzi advised learning to be useless and how to achieve this state.
Background: The Crooked Tree and the Value of Uselessness
In the first chapter of the ancient Daoist classic Zhuangzi (attributed to Zhuang Zhou, c. 369–286 BCE), we read about wondrous animals and plants: a fish named Ro transforms into a magnificent bird named Peng with a wingspan of thousands of miles, a caterpillar and a rose of Sharon live for thousands of years. The chapter ends with a discussion of another marvel of nature: a huge, twisted, knobby tree—so gnarled that its wood is useless to carpenters.
The logical-minded Hui Zi calls the tree “big and useless,” good for nothing. But Zhuangzi defends the crooked tree:
“You say your tree is useless. Then plant it in the Village of Nowhere, set it in the Desert of Infinite Space, and wander around it, free from worries, resting beneath it and dreaming pleasant dreams. No axe will ever cut it down, and nothing will harm it. When there is no use, where can worries come from?”
Throughout the book, Zhuangzi emphasizes the importance of enjoying oneself. We do not always have to strive for usefulness. There is no need to constantly produce or do things that benefit ourselves or others.
Philosophical Context: Competing Views on Usefulness
Zhuangzi lived during a vibrant period of Chinese thought known as the Warring States era, which saw the rise of Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Sophism, Yangism, and, importantly for this discussion, Mohism. These thinkers debated the Dao (the Way) and passionately discussed what makes a good life.
Zhuangzi argued that we can reclaim our lives and become happier and more fulfilled by becoming more “useless.” In this, he opposed many influential thinkers of his time, such as the Mohists. Followers of Master Mo (c. 470–391 BCE) valued efficiency and welfare above all. They insisted on cutting out all “useless” aspects of life—art, luxury, ritual, culture, leisure, even emotional expression—and instead focused on ensuring that people of all social classes received the material resources they needed. Mohists saw many common practices as immoral waste. For example, instead of elaborate funerals, they recommended simply digging a hole deep enough to prevent the body from smelling, allowing only brief mourning before returning to work and life.
Although the Mohists wrote over two thousand years ago, their ideas sound familiar today. We often hear that we should avoid supposedly useless things like art or a humanities education (think of frequent budget cuts to the humanities in universities). Or we’re told to value these things only to the extent that they benefit the economy or people’s welfare. You may have felt the uncomfortable pressure of meritocracy in your own life: the idea that you must serve a purpose and be as productive as possible—that everything you do must be useful.
However, as we’ll see, Zhuangzi offers an antidote to this goal-oriented way of thinking. He shows that you can improve your life by letting go of the anxiety that comes from always trying to serve something or someone. Of course, Zhuangzi does not reject usefulness altogether. Rather, he argues that usefulness should not be the main goal of life.
Appreciating Crooked Trees and Imperfect Bodies
Let’s return to the old, withered tree that Zhuangzi’s friend Hui Zi complains is too “crooked and uneven to measure, its branches too twisted and winding.” Don’t worry, Zhuangzi replies:
“…no axe will ever cut it down, and nothing will harm it. When there is no use, where can worries come from?”
The point is that a tree, like a person, cannot be reduced to its usefulness. The crooked tree simply exists—in all its glory. Because it is not useful to others, it is spared from harm; it won’t be cut down for firewood. And when Hui Zi stops obsessing over its usefulness, he might even enjoy resting in its shade.
We see similar ideas in Zhuangzi’s descriptions of people like “club-footed” Shu, whose “chin rests on his navel, shoulders rise above his head, tail points to the sky, five organs on his crown, two thighs pressing on his ribs.” Unlike the healthy dukes, kings, and lords who fill early Confucian texts, Zhuangzi celebrates people without legs or with hunchbacks. They should be accepted as they are, not “fixed” or changed. (He tells a story about a mythological hero named “Chaos,” who has no “holes in his head”—no eyes, ears, nostrils, or mouth. Well-meaning people, wanting to repay his hospitality, drill holes in his head one by one and kill him.)
Zhuangzi describes the lives of people with disabilities as good. For example, “club-footed” Shu, instead of doing hard labor in the fields, sews and washes:
“When the authorities call up troops, he stands in the crowd and waves goodbye; when a big work party is gathered, he is passed over because he is unfit.”
His life is good not because he is useful, but because he can live in peace and follow the Dao (the central idea in Chinese philosophy, roughly translated as “the Way” or “the path”). Like the magnificent sprawling tree, imperfect bodies in Zhuangzi challenge the utilitarian calculus that underlies much of our modern existence.
Being Useful to Others Isn’t Always Good for Ourselves
There’s another reason in Zhuangzi why we shouldn’t always strive to be useful: trying to be useful can actually harm us. The crooked tree stands because it’s considered useless, while the neat, straight tree is cut down for firewood. Later, Zhuangzi tells of a dream in which a similarly deformed oak speaks of its more useful kin:
“Their usefulness makes their lives miserable, so they don’t live out their allotted years, but are cut short halfway.”
Sometimes, being useless allows one to survive or even thrive.
Zhuangzi then considers the opposite example. He says that a goose that honks is spared (because its honking is useful: it warns its owner of intruders), while a useless goose that doesn’t honk is killed. In this case, usefulness saves the goose. So, which is better: usefulness or uselessness?
Zhuangzi laughs at the question and says:
“…you’ll never escape trouble this way. But it’s a different matter if you climb onto the Way and its virtue, wandering and drifting, earning neither praise nor blame: now a dragon, now a snake, changing with the times, never sticking to just one path.”
He argues that we shouldn’t judge ourselves and our actions primarily by the contribution we make. We shouldn’t reduce ourselves to tools serving others, the economy, the greater good, or even our future selves (like the pressure on young professionals to work hard for their future careers). Instead, Zhuangzi says, drifting and wandering lightly, unconcerned with praise or blame, is true freedom.
In another story, Hui Zi tells Zhuangzi about a giant gourd, weighing about 600 pounds, that he received as a gift from the king. Hui Zi couldn’t find a use for it. It was too big to use as a vat, too heavy to use as a water vessel, so he smashed the amazing gourd to pieces. Zhuangzi tells his friend that maybe he’s overthinking things. Why not take the marvelous gourd and float freely, wandering the rivers and lakes?
A Useless Life Is a Life of Free and Easy Wandering
The title of the first chapter of Zhuangzi—“Free and Easy Wandering”—can be seen as a suggestion for how to live a life that rejects the very idea of utility, and instead invites us to see life as a journey or a “game.” Throughout the book, Zhuangzi sets the concepts of freedom and play in opposition to usefulness, showing what a life spent wandering with the Dao might look like—a life not governed by static categories of usefulness and uselessness.
For example, in Book 17, the King of Chu sends two officials to ask Zhuangzi to become his chief administrator—a rich and prestigious position. Zhuangzi is fishing and doesn’t even turn around. He says:
“I’ve heard that in Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for 3,000 years. The king keeps it wrapped in cloth and boxed up in the ancestral temple. Would that turtle rather be dead and honored, or alive and dragging its tail through the mud?”
The officials agree it would rather be alive, so Zhuangzi concludes: “Go away! I’ll drag my tail through the mud!” It’s infinitely better to drag your tail through the mud than to be a sycophantic official—unless, of course, being an official is your way of following the Dao.
According to Zhuangzi, we don’t need to seek a balance between usefulness and uselessness. We should let go of the idea of usefulness altogether. A society based on usefulness does not make us happier or bring us into harmony with nature.
Key Takeaways: How to Be Useless
- We don’t always need to be useful; it’s okay to simply enjoy life. In our society, as in Zhuangzi’s, usefulness is often seen as the bottom line for all decisions. Zhuangzi shows that this mindset traps us in a cycle of calculation, where we see ourselves and others as means to an end. This prevents us from enjoying our own lives and the natural harmony around us.
- Appreciate crooked trees and imperfect bodies. Zhuangzi sees some people with disabilities as models of a good life: their lives are good precisely because they (like us) are not just means to someone else’s ends (like labor or the military). For a good life, it’s important not to be useful, but to live your years freely and easily.
- Being useful to others isn’t always good for us. In Zhuangzi, we find at least two main problems with making decisions based on usefulness: (1) being useful isn’t always good for us—sometimes we’re used as tools for others’ goals and end up unhappy; (2) the very lens of usefulness and uselessness can cloud our understanding of a good life.
- A useless life is one of free and easy wandering. By letting go of worries about whether we (or the things in our lives) are useful, we can become happier, live in harmony with nature, and appreciate the amazing diversity of people and things as good in themselves, without thinking about some ultimate goal. You are not just a tool, but a remarkable part of the wild and multifaceted universe.
Why This Matters
But how many of us would turn down a high-paying political job and choose to “drag our tail through the mud”? Bills must be paid, mortgages settled, reputations maintained. It’s important to remember that Zhuangzi does not recommend completely withdrawing from society. In this respect, his philosophy differs from the Dao De Jing, the classic text attributed to the mythical Laozi, which advocates a utopian life of rural simplicity. Instead, Zhuangzi often points to exemplary figures who are “in the world but not of it,” such as the butcher, the bell-maker, the wheelwright, or the swimmer in the rushing river. But this teaching applies not only to ordinary people. In Zhuangzi’s world, dukes, ministers, and scholars can also live a good life.
So, you don’t have to give up a lucrative job and become a hermit in the mountains. Rather than fleeing the social world—which is impossible anyway—Zhuangzi repeatedly suggests the idea of being in the world but not of it. He opposes the mentality that usefulness should be the main criterion for our life choices.
In contrast to Zhuangzi’s idea, there is the concept of welfarism, which holds that the value of something or someone is determined by whether we or others benefit from it. Few Western philosophers have opposed welfarism. For example, Susan Wolf praises “good-for-nothingness,” and Bertrand Russell wrote the essay “In Praise of Idleness” (1932). Wolf argues that “we should think more creatively and originally about the value of the things we love, not just in terms of how we or others benefit from them.” But how can we break free from the mindset that value lies in usefulness?
Against the claim that people (and things) must always serve some greater good, Zhuangzi argues that it is wonderful simply to be. For example, imagine you are happy and thriving as a doctor in a hospital, enjoying your craft and feeling it aligns with the Dao—then it’s great to continue as you are. But if you are unhappy, stressed, and the main reason you became a doctor was for the salary or even the good of society, think again. Choosing a less “useful” path is okay—and even desirable.
At the heart of Zhuangzi’s philosophy is a belief in a generous universe, where each person lives according to what gives them energy and vitality; then resources will be abundant, people will be satisfied living in the Dao, and conflict and toxic competition will cease. Scholars call this idea finding your “mastery” or “skill” in life. In everyday terms, Zhuangzi’s vision is like “finding your groove,” “your place,” or “flow.” Some people love computers and become programmers, others become historians, tennis players, surgeons, gardeners, business owners, or political activists. Such a world requires society to welcome difference and the many ways of living well, rather than imposing a strict social hierarchy that rewards some and neglects others.
Zhuangzi also recommends flexibility in choosing your life path. We should drift and wander, not seeking praise or blame, changing with the times. If life-changing events force you to reconsider your path, don’t see it as a crisis, but as an opportunity to reassess what you want.
Most importantly, don’t think of yourself as a tool or object, reducing yourself to your usefulness. You are much more than that. You are not just a tool in a big project or a vessel for a ritual; you are a glorious part of the great universe, and when you connect with it or become one with its unstoppable energy—when you become one with the Dao—you come closer to your true self.