Zhuangzi was walking in the mountains when he saw a big tree with luxuriant branches and leaves. A lumberjack was stopped next to it but didn't bite. Zhuangzi asked him why not and he said, "It's no use."
Zhuangzi said, "This tree lived out its natural years on account of its low quality."
He left the mountains and stopped at an old friend's house. The old friend was pleased and told the boy to kill a goose to roast. The boy asked. "Which should I kill, the one that can honk or the one that can't?"
The host said. "Kill the one that can't honk."
The next day, a student asked Zhuangzi, "The other day, the mountain tree lived out its natural years on account of its low quality; now our host's goose dies on account of its low quality. What do you make of this, sir?"
Zhuangzi laughed. "I'd probably come down between quality and no quality. But though between quality and no quality may seem like the place to be but it isn't, you still can't escape trouble there, not like when you saddle up the way's powers and float. No praise or blame. Here a dragon there a snake, changing along with the times, not doing anything in particular. Here above there below, using harmony for your measure, float with the ancestors of all things, thinging things, not thinged by things. Then what can trouble you?
"This was the method of the Yellow Emperor and Shennong. But the essences of all things and the traditions of human affairs are not like this. They join, then part. They ripen, then rot. Upright, then downthrown. Respected, then rejected. Do something, then lose it. High-minded, then low-thought. Unassuming, then availed upon. What can you find to be sure of? Sad, isn't it? Note this, students: it's only the way-and-powers town, Jack!" [1]