11:09

大馬之捶鉤者，年八十矣，而不失豪芒。大馬曰：「子巧與？有道與？」

曰：「臣有守也。臣之年二十而好捶鉤，於物無視也，非鉤無察也。是用之者，假不用者也以長得其用，而況乎無不用者乎！物孰不資焉？」[a]

The cavalryman's buckle-smith was eighty and had not lost an iota. The cavalryman asked, "What's your trick? Is there a way?"

He said, "There is something I keep. Since I was twenty I've loved making buckles. I don't pay attention to other things. If it's not a buckle, I won't even look at it. I eventually got the use of things by not using things. What if I hadn't not used anything? What wouldn't I have made the most of?" [1]

[1] I believe there's a paradox hear recalling the use of the useless tree (4:05) and the idea that Uncle Splay-limb would be even better off his powers were splayed as well (4:07). Here , I think the idea if, instead of just ignoring non-belt-buckles, he'd ignored everything, how much more would he have learned? Alternatively, if in addition to ignoring things, he'd ignored the ignoring . . . Either way, I think the point is that, as with Splay-limb and the useless tree, this is an incomplete picture that points to something higher but out of range.

[a] CTP 22.09, HYZY 22/68-70.

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