VOLUME III, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 24, SECTION 2
Born Scarcity, and Made Scarcity
At the end of the last section a hook was left: if someone lifts a hand and goes to change that few, what then? This section splits scarcity in two. One half is fixed by Heaven, one half is made by a human hand. These two halves look exactly alike, and the degree read out on that rule is exactly alike too, yet they are two things. Not to see this layer clear is to fail to understand everything behind in this whole chapter.
One. The first kind, fixed by Heaven
The first kind of scarcity is born. Look at a good field: it leans on water, the soil is black, two harvests a year, and fields like this, all under heaven there are only so many, not one mu more. Look at a gold mine: where the gold is buried, how much is hidden, that was a matter fixed hundreds of millions of years ago, and a person can only go and look for it, and not finding it, there is none. Look at a person’s gift: some are born with a good ear, a note heard once and remembered, some are born with a steady hand, drilled however they will and it does not shake.
See clear the common point of these three things: their few is not made by anyone. It is just there, you come, and it is this much, you do not come, and it is still this much. This kind of scarcity is the board of the game itself, it is dead, it does not favor, nor does it work ill.
Two. The second kind, made by a human hand
The second kind of scarcity is made. Speak of a most simple matter. A village, at the mouth of the village a well, the well dug by the ancestors, several hundred years old, the whole village drinking the water of this well. The water is not scarce, whoever is thirsty goes and draws.
Now a person comes, and he does three things. The first, around the well he rings a wall. The second, in the wall he opens a door, and on the door he adds a lock. The third, he sits at the door and says to those who come to draw: to go in you may, one bucket of water, one coin. See clear what happened this moment. That well, not one drop of water is fewer, and the village people, not one is more. Yet from that day on, the water is scarce.
Three. Two things, on that rule exactly alike
Here is a matter most crucial, see it to the death. Go ask that rule: this village’s water, scarce or not? The rule reads out a number: the water is dearer. Does that rule tell apart whether this scarce is fixed by Heaven or made by that wall? It cannot tell. It reads the degree only, it has no eyes, and no heart.
Chapter twenty spoke of it: heaven and earth are not kind, they treat the ten thousand things as straw dogs, this rule carries no feeling, it only reads the number. So a wall built up, the number that rule reads out, and the number a true drought reads out, are the same. This is the place this whole chapter must see clearest: the two scarcities, on that rule, look exactly alike, yet their sources, one is Heaven, one is a pair of hands.
Four. This hand, what is it called
Call the thing this pair of hands did by its true name. Last semester spoke a character: wei, what a person makes is called wei, neutral. That wall is wei, that lock is wei, that line one bucket of water one coin is wei too. Remember the meaning nailed last semester: wei is neutral, its good and ill on the hands.
And there is the more crucial half besides: wei the more refined is the harder to recognize. That wall at the mouth of the village is still of the coarse kind, you walk past it, you see it, you touch it, you know someone built a wall. Yet those several walls the sections behind will look at, you cannot see, they have no brick, no lock, no one sitting at the door taking money, they are only a written paper, a decree, a name. Yet they ring the water in just the same.
Five. These two scarcities, the human doing is wholly unlike
Why must these two be split apart at all costs? Because when you face them, the doing is wholly unlike. Born scarcity, you can only own it, then think of a way. The good fields are only so many, what does a person do? A person improves the seed, cuts channels to lead water, turns the thin field thick. The gold mine is only so much, what does a person do? A person goes to find new ore, and from the discarded slag draws out again the little that is left.
See clear: facing born scarcity, what a person does is to make the thing more. This is that long river chapter sixteen spoke of, Li Bing’s one thought, the one thought generation after generation. But facing made scarcity, what you must do is another matter: you must first see that wall. You cannot, facing that wall, go invent a more water-sparing method, what you must ask is: this wall, who built it? By what right built?
Six. What this section set, crossing to the next
This section split scarcity in two. One half is born: good field, gold mine, gift, its few made by no one, it is the board itself, it is dead. One half is made: that well is still that well, not one drop of water fewer, not one person more, yet someone rang a wall, opened a door, added a lock, and sat at the door taking money, and from that day the water is scarce. The two scarcities read out the same degree on that rule, that rule cannot tell them apart, yet their sources, one is Heaven, one is a pair of hands.
Speaking to here, a breath of anger has likely gathered in the heart, keep this breath, this whole chapter will come back at the end to handle it on purpose. The next section goes to look at a thing. It is the most beautiful wall in this world: it shines and glitters, it is held in the palm, it is taken for love’s own token, it is written into a line everyone can say. It held up a hundred years and more. Later, the folk of Henan, with a machine, saw straight through it.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.