"The twisted tree lives its life, while the right tree ends up as planks." "... paraphrased from the Book of Chuang Tzu, the second major text of Taoism. Taoism is a critique of the more mainstream ideals of Confucianism. In the original text the twisted tree story has less to do with “individualism” and more to do with Taoism’s rejection of duality. The twisted tree is so useless that it’s useful, because it’s the only tree left to offer shade after all the others are cut down. Ergo, the duality between useful and useless (and, by extension, all things) is an illusion. Many Taoist verses are thought experiments driving at this same conclusion."
