An ancient gnarled tree:
Too fibrous for a logger's saw,
Too twisted to fit a carpenter's square,
Outlasts the whole forest.

Loggers delight in straight grained, strong, fragrant wood.  If the timber is too difficult to cut, too twisted to be made straight, too foul-odored for cabinets, and too spongy for firewood, it is left alone.  Useful trees are cut down.  Useless ones survive.

The same is true of people.  The strong are conscripted.  The beautiful are exploited.  Those who are too plain to be noticed are the ones who survive.  They are left alone and safe.

But what if we ourselves are among such plain persons?  Though others may neglect us, we should not thing of ourselves as being without value.  We must not accept the judgment of others as the measure of our own self worth.  Instead, we should live our lives in simplicity.

Surely, we will have flaws, but we must take stock in them according to our own judgment and then use them as a measure of self-improvement.  Since we need not expend energy in putting on airs or maintaining a position, we are  actually free to cultivate the best parts of our personalities.  Thus, to be considered useless in not a reason for despair, but an opportunity.  It is the chance to live without interference and to express one's own individuality.
 
 
 

uselessness
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Bada Shanren
Qing [Ching] Dynasty
1624-1705
landscape

Bada Shanren's Strange Pictures

 In the early days of the Qing Dynasty there was a famous painter named Zhu Da, but he was known as Bada Shanren because he signed most of his pictures with this name. A descendant of zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), he grew up in Nanchang, Jiangsu Province. Bada learned poetry and art while he was only a little boy. His peaceful life ended when the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by the Manchu northerners in 1644. The Qing army took over Nanchang the next year and the nineteen-year-old Bada and his family were forced to flee and hide in the mountains.

A series of misfortunes followed. Bada's father, wife, and son died. Under such heavy blows, then twenty-three, changed his name and became a monk. He studied Dhyanna (Zen), the teachings of a Buddhist sect in ancient China that asserted that enlightment could be attained through meditation and self-contemplation rather than through the scriptures. In his thirties Bada became interested in Daoist teachings. He often went to Qingyunpu, a Daoist temple near Nanchang, to study Daoist scriptures. One day, in his mid-fifties, when he heard that some of his poems had been used by an official to flatter the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, he went mad. He wandered through the streets of Nanchang, wailing and laughing alternately. When he was 62, he decided to return to a secular life and earned his living by painting and teaching. At this time he started to use the name Bada Shanren for many of his works. Although he was poor, he refused to paint for officials and rich people. He died in 1705 at the age of eighty.

Bada Shanren's paintings look strange to the public and even to many artists. The birds and fish in his pictures always hold their heads high. Their eyes were drawn big and even square to show the painter's feelings. His bitter experiences in those years of social turmoil and his hatred for the Qing rulers helped to shape his distinctive style. In his "Picture of Peacocks", two peacocks squat on a strangely-shaped and unsteady stone. They are very ugly and have strange big eyes. Each has three tail plumes which look like the symbols of rank worn on the hats of Qing officials. The poem written on the painting provides the viewer with some idea of the meaning of the picture. The plumes on the peacocks were used to ridicule Qing officials; the strangely shaped and unsteady stone symbolized that the Qing Dynasty was not built on a firm foundation and would eventually be overthrown. When Zheng Banqiao, a later painter, commented on Bada Shanren's works, he said Bada's paintings contained more tears than brush strokes done with Chinese ink.

Bada's method of expression was based on his mastery of traditional Chinese painting techniques. However, he did not follow tradition blindly; he tried new trails and sought new ways of expression. He excelled at painting landscapes, flowers, and birds. What characterized his works was simple composition, brief and precise brush strokes, exaggeration, strange images, and the human expressions and attitudes displayed by his subjects. Bada Shanren's style exerted a great influence on later artists. The Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou in the Qing Dynasty and such well-known modern artists as Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Wu Changshuo, and Li Kuchan all followed Bada Shanren's example and succeeded in forming their own styles.