Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the Self

At one point Guo writes: ‘Freedom from the “other” and “this one” is how one achieves arcane unity’ (Z 2.10.1).

After Zigong admits that he is a follower of Confucius, the gardener continues the attack, accusing Zigong of being ‘one of those who broaden their learning so as to appear like the sages, fawn and flatter so to rise above the masses, strumming and singing sad solos so to peddle their reputations to the world!’

The gardener’s boastfulness demonstrates that he has not forgotten himself at all. ‘One who boasts about himself has no merit’, as a later chapter, quoting the Daodejing, puts it (Z 20.16.8).18 The gardener in fact shows an attitude of ambition towards Zigong – an attempt to influence him through criticism, to make Zigong more like himself, or at l

The ideal presented here is one of letting things happen spontaneously, inside and outside yourself, without thinking about what you are trying to become in doing so. The sage’s unselfconscious way of being is not inactive, nor is it unthinking. What is distinctive about the true sage is a lack of egotism.

As we have seen, wu 吾 stands for a sort of self that is more like an unselfing.15 This would explain why acting with self-conscious knowledge, youwei 有為, really means losing your fundamental nature. Youwei 有為 could mean deeming yourself under a specific identity – a wo 我 – and thus losing sight of the undetermined, identityless nature of your wu 吾.

Rather, it means trying not to be led by goals, ambitions or a notion of self at all.

Even if Guo is wrong and the sages are imitators, we are unlikely to become such popular exemplars as they are. We will never have the prestige of those we emulate. Our emulation will always be incomplete and unsatisfying. Our exemplars will become objects of impossible envy.

All these were endowed with so much versatility that they made everyone in the world dance after them in emulation, but in emulating them, people lost what they themselves were. It was this loss of self due to them that made them masters of chaos, and the great disaster that has so afflicted the world is caused by just this loss of self. (Z 10.5.12

Next, imitation gives rise to what Guo refers to (Z 5.31) as ‘impossible envy’. When we imitate a model, we want to be the model, not the imitator. Yet in fact we are the imitator, not the model. We are striving to be like our model, but is that something our model would do?