Tao Te Ching XXII

Bowed down then preserved.

Bent then straight.

Hollow then full.

Worn then new.

A little then benefitted.

A lot then perplexed.

Therefore the sage embraces the One and is a model for the empire.

She does not show himself and so is conspicuous.

She does not consider himself right and so is illustrious.

She does not brag and so has merit.

She does not boast and so endures.

It is because she does not contend that no one in the empire is in a position to contend with her.

The way the ancients had it—bowed down then preserved—is no empty saying;

truly it enables one to be preserved to the end.

The One the sage loves is no middling balance, no average of the difficult extremes, no part of the whole, no thing expressed in words, no idea.  It is only the reality of fully lived experience.  It includes all the opposites and so, in inexperienced hands, is schizoid even as the empire, in inexperienced hands, is schizoid.  But the sage is so comfortable with the nature of reality—the nature of government, civilizations, cultures, societies, organizations, families, the human psyche, nature, reality, dreams, herself—that nothing phases her.  What is schizoid to others is one to her.

It is because of this familiarity that she does not act like the average person—overtly or covertly asserting herself, overtly or covertly competing, raising herself up, pushing others down, smiling as she is successful in doing this, frowning as she isn’t—but like a sage, doing none of these things—not from volition, instruction, force, actual or potential gain, but naturally.  The sage is conspicuous, illustrious, meritorious, enduring simply because she is rare.  The rare is beautiful and virtuous, not according to the vast preponderance of beauty and virtue—those common images and words which the masses fall sway to—but according to some other thing.