A Useless Tree, 2009, by Fred Hatt
“Tzu-ch’i of Nan-po was wandering around the Hill of Shang when he saw a huge tree there, different from all the rest. A thousand teams of horses could have taken shelter under it and its shade would have covered them all. Tzu-ch’i said, “What tree is this? It must certainly have some extraordinary usefulness!” But, looking up, he saw that the smaller limbs were gnarled and twisted, unfit for beams or rafters, and looking down, he saw that the trunk was pitted and rotten and could not be used for coffins. He licked one of the leaves and it blistered his mouth and made it sore. He sniffed the odor and it was enough to make a man drunk for three days. “It turns out to be a completely unusable tree,” said Tzu-ch’i, “and so it has been able to grow this big. Aha! – it is this unusableness that the Holy Man makes use of!” – from Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, translated by Burton Watson, 1964, Columbia University Press.
The world is always looking for useful things and people. But those that are most useful get used up quickly, exploited, trampled and destroyed. They are valued not for themselves, but only for their usefulness. To be useless, or complicated, or different from the norm, is a powerful way to protect one’s essence so that it may be allowed to develop naturally, to thrive in its own way. I strive to be as useless as possible. If it seems that my work may be becoming useful to someone in some way, that is the sign to me to change directions, to give it a twist!
Many people are familiar with Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, perhaps the most poetic of all the ancient philosophical texts. Chuang Tzu, or Zhuangzi, the second famous Taoist philosopher, living in the fourth century BCE, used jokes, parables and tall tales to liberate the mind from the slavery of conventional attitudes and values.
Here’s a link to another version of the story, from Thomas Merton’s great collection of Chuang Tzu’s pithiest bits.
My illustration above is an ink-brush sketch on paper, 11″ x 14″ or 28 cm x 36 cm. It was made during a break from observational drawing at “Cross Pollination“, a monthly open session for artists, dancers and musicians to practice and inspire and be inspired by each other, at Green Space Studio in Queens.
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6 Comments
What a great blog entry!
And thanks for the link to Green Space Studio
Sully, thanks for the comment. Green Space is having a dance festival through May 3. I’m sure there will be some good performances. Hope to run into you again soon.
i remember when you making this, it’s beautiful!
Thanks, Valerie, and thanks for sharing your Green Space Studio.
Oops Fred, your work is getting far too useful. John Parks at least got a good meal out of the article he wrote on you in the spring edition of Drawing.
Then again useless doesn’t always work either. When I was growing up, down in Miami, in the 50′s, there was a grand banyan tree, near the bay that took up around 4 city blocks. It was useless and amazing fine and was destroyed and the area paved as a parking lot.
But then again, again; Tzu-ch’i’s tree is gone, I’m sure, and both are bigger and grander in retrospect. Shucky darn, my Miami Banyan probably didn’t really cover more than three city blocks!
Oh yea, guy, you do good work!
Thanks for the comment, Jim. Indeed, if Chuang Tzu were writing the story today he might have to add that for a tree to reach its allotted span it needs not only to be useless, but also to be on useless land! Unfortunately I live on highly useful land and thus have been forced to move three times (twice in the last three years) because of “development” or “gentrification”. The artists that moved into the rundown parts of New York City in the 70′s, 80′s and 90′s didn’t know how very useful they were being!
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