Tao Te Ching — Chapter 20

Cut off learning and there are no more worries. Between a respectful "yes" and a flattering "yeah," how much difference is there really? Between good and evil, how great is the distance? Yet what people fear cannot simply be ignored. How boundless and endless it all is! The crowd is joyful, as if at a great feast, as if climbing a tower in spring. I alone am still, giving no sign, like an infant that has not yet smiled — listless, as if I had nowhere to return. The crowd all have more than enough; I alone seem to have lost everything. Mine is the mind of a fool — so muddled! Ordinary people are bright and clear; I alone am dim. Ordinary people are sharp and certain; I alone am dull and confused. Calm, like the sea; adrift, as if with nowhere to stop. The crowd all have their purposes; I alone am stubborn and uncouth. I alone am different from others — and I treasure being fed by the mother.

James Legge (1891)

When we renounce learning we have no troubles. The (ready) 'yes,' and (flattering) 'yea;'—Small is the difference they display. But mark their issues, good and ill;—What space the gulf between shall fill? What all men fear is indeed to be feared; but how wide and without end is the range of questions (asking to be discussed)! The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos. Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer. (Thus) I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao).

Dwight Goddard (1919)

Avoid learning if you would have no anxiety. The "yes" and the "yea" differ very little, but the contrast between good and evil is very great. That which is not feared by the people is not worth fearing. But, oh, the difference, the desolation, the vastness, between ignorance and the limitless expression of the Tao. It is one of the most pathetic expressions of human loneliness, from lack of appreciation, ever written.

This is the most personal and emotionally raw chapter in the entire book — almost a confession. After the impersonal teachings of the preceding chapters, the voice suddenly becomes "I," and it is the voice of someone profoundly out of step with the world. It opens with the keynote: jué xué wú yōu — give up learning (the anxious accumulation of distinctions and approvals) and the worries fall away. The fine differences people fret over — a polite "yes" versus a flattering one, even "good" versus "evil" — are exposed as far less absolute than the crowd assumes.

Then comes the haunting central portrait. While everyone else feasts, bustles, and climbs the tower in spring — full of purpose, brightness, and certainty — the speaker is still, blank, drifting like an infant before its first smile, like someone with no home to return to. He seems foolish, dull, and lost where others are sharp and satisfied. It is a portrait of the genuine loneliness of the spiritual path: to follow the Tao is to be, by ordinary standards, an oddity who has "lost everything." But the chapter ends on its quiet anchor: guì shí mǔ — "I treasure being fed by the mother." The mother is the Tao, the source. The speaker is willing to look like a fool to the world because he is nourished at a deeper spring than the crowd's busy purposes. Goddard's edition notably abridges this chapter, treating its lonely lyric as a closing valediction.

The figure of the sage who appears foolish and homeless to the world is one of the most universal in spiritual literature. Saint Paul wrote of being "fools for Christ's sake"; the Russian and Byzantine traditions revere the yurodivy, the holy fool whose apparent madness conceals wisdom. The wandering renunciate of India — the sannyasin who has left home and possessions and seems to have "lost everything" — embodies the same paradox.

The image of being "fed by the mother" while others feast at the banquet recalls the mystic nourished by an inner source the world cannot see — Jesus's "I have food to eat that you do not know about," or the contemplative sustained by union with the divine while appearing, outwardly, to have renounced all ordinary satisfactions.

To live by a deeper principle than the crowd is often to feel alienated from it — to seem dull, lost, or foolish to people busy with their certainties and satisfactions. This loneliness is real, but it is bearable, even chosen, when one is genuinely nourished by a source the crowd cannot see.

This chapter speaks tenderly to anyone who has felt fundamentally out of sync with a culture of constant striving, opinion, and display. The endless feast of activity and certainty that everyone else seems to enjoy can leave a more contemplative person feeling adrift and inadequate — "I alone seem to have lost everything." Its consolation is not to fix the loneliness but to reframe it: being different, even appearing foolish, is the natural cost of being "fed by the mother," anchored in something deeper than the crowd's busy purposes.