Doldrums

„Banish learning, and there will be no more
grieving.
Between wei and o
What after all is the difference?
Can it be compared to the difference between
good and bad?
The saying, ,what others avoid I too must avoid’
How false and superficial it is.
All men indeed are wreathed in smiles,
As though feasting after the Great Sacrifice,
As though going up to the Spring Carnival.
I alone am inert, like a child that has not yet given
sign;
Like an infant that has not yet smiled.
I droop and drift as though I belonged nowhere.
All men have enough and to spare;
I alone seem to have lost everything.
Mine is indeed the mind of a very idiot,
So dull am I.
The world is full of people that shine;
I alone am dark.
They look lively and self assured;
I alone, depressed.
I seem unsettled as the ocean;
Blown adrift, never brought to a stop.
All men can be put to some use;
I alone am intractable and boorish.
But wherein I most am different from men
Is that I prize no sustenance that comes not from
the Mother’s breast.“

(Lao Tzu, „Tao Te Ching“)