VOLUME III, SEMESTER 4, CHAPTER 45, SECTION 2
The Two Pits of Overstepping: Managing Too Much, Letting Go Too Much
The last section marked clear the four rules’ positions, and made plain that keeping the bound means knowing when to step down. This section looks at the shape after the bound gives way. Giving way has only two shapes, and they run just opposite. One is the hand reached too long, taking over a matter not its to manage. One is the hand pulled back too fast, letting go a matter plainly its to manage. The first is called managing too much, the second letting go too much. These two pits, one on the left, one on the right, and what falls in is one and the same matter: that bound was not kept.
One, first managing too much, three common shapes
The first shape: the hand of need reached into the wage sheet. The last section’s boss with his red packet is a light one, and heavier ones there are: sharing by heads, by mouths at home, by whose days are hard. Given, and the whole room says good, all feel this is where the human feeling is. Yet that hand who turned out the most stock in a day will from now put out only seven parts of strength, keeping the other three to himself.
The second shape: the hand of risk reached into the sickroom. Whoever is sick carries it himself, treats it if he can bear the cost, lets it go if he cannot, and whether to treat first looks at whether it is worth it. Chapter forty said, sickness is no trade and a life is no stake, a trade lost can be run again, a life lost has no next run. Use the wrong rule, and the cost this once is at once a person.
The third shape: the hand of force reached into the stock coming off. The thing will not come out, and instead of squaring the wage clean and mending the machine, first an order comes down: no man may leave, no other house may make it, no grating word may be said. The first three months it works best, the order down and the matter moves at once, the number reported up looks fine. Three years on, the person is still there, the hands still move, the heart no longer in it.
These three shapes look far apart, one in the counting room, one in the sickroom, one on the floor, yet they share one starting point: the one doing the matter wanted to get it done faster, done steadier, done more fair. Not one meant to do the matter ill.
Two, now letting go too much, also three shapes
The first shape: what should be floored is not floored. That forty-year-old weaver, his cloth will not sell, no one catches him, and they say he will find his own way, the market will arrange it of itself. Yet the last chapter counted this after-account: he drops, the whole family drops with him, and twenty years on no one is willing to set down the old craft and learn an unsure new one.
The second shape: what should be reckoned is not reckoned. The wage sheet all peace and good feeling, none willing to pull the gap open for fear of hurting the peace, and the floor-under sum given only a little for fear men lean on it. This is chapter forty-three’s splitting the difference: all four there, all four only half, every one looks present, every one no use, the willing chilled, the fallen not enough to live on.
The third shape: what should be watched is not watched. That contract forbidding a man to go elsewhere, that debt that comes down the moment he lifts his foot, that order that only a few houses may make, set in the open and no one asks after it, and they say the man signed it himself, they say this is the trade’s own rule, they say even a clear officer cannot judge a household matter. Grown full, the first three are pushed out one by one.
These three shapes share a starting point too: the one doing the matter wanted to manage a little less, let it grow of itself, fearing his own reach would spoil it. This thought itself is not bad either, and very often quite right, for chapter forty-three’s four ways of standing alone were every one reached out by a hand reached too long.
Three, the two pits are equally deep, for each is masked by a fine-sounding line
Set these two sides together, and a thing worth finding shows: each has a line that sounds past reproach. The managing-too-much side says, someone has to manage. Is this right? Right. There are truly many matters in this world that without someone managing will surely fall into disorder, and the child put down the shaft is a thing managed out by long having no one manage it.
The letting-go-too-much side says, less managing is best. Is this right? Also right. There are truly many matters that a reached hand spoils, the more managers the less done, till at the last all manage and none answers for it. Both lines are right, and both are short half a line. The half short is: this matter, to which rule does it belong? Add this half, and both lines stand. Leave it off, and both turn to a mouth-habit asked of nothing, one used to reach the hand, one used to pull it back.
So this section’s first line: the question was never manage more or manage less, it is to whom this matter belongs. Manage more or less is two ends of one straight line, to whom it belongs is another question, and sliding back and forth on that line, tighter this year, looser next, never walks out of these two pits.
One more layer to break open: these two pits are not dug by two crowds, often it is one crowd, in one year, digging one on each side. The same shop, the wage sheet looked after by heads is managing too much, that contract forbidding a man to go elsewhere lying in the drawer unasked is letting go too much. The same place, this end every matter to be filed for approval, that end the wall that should be watched watched by no one. No wonder, for the root of the two pits is one: the question not asked first, to which rule this matter belongs. Without this asking, reaching the hand and pulling it back are both by mood.
Four, three questions, to pull the hand back
Meeting a matter one cannot be sure of, ask it through by three lines. These three questions are not clever, yet they work. The first: which matter is this? A matter of what is put in, of what is needed, of risk, or of that wall? Chapter forty’s four matters serve here as a rule. The child’s schooling is a matter of need, the wage sheet a matter of what is put in, changing to a new machine a matter of risk, a contract forbidding a man to go elsewhere a matter of that wall. Sort it first, and afterward there is ground to speak, for many a matter quarreled half a day is really two sides sorting it different.
The second: which rule should measure this matter? Sorted, the rule follows. Set, then look whether the hand reached over is that rule. Not that rule, and it is overstepping. The third is weightiest: that overstepping hand, why did it reach over?
This question can often ask out the true ill. The answer asked out is mostly not that the hand is greedy, but that the rule which should manage this matter did not get the matter done, and left a position empty, and the empty position is where another hand can reach in.
Five, overstepping is often covering, and covering says the own position is empty
Walk the third question one step down, and you reach this section’s deepest layer. Why did that boss use a red packet to look after the workers in hardship at home? Mostly because the floor-under road does not go through: health cover pays back little, hardship relief is troublesome to apply for and long to wait. He did not want to seize that rule’s work, he saw that rule not in place, the people near him could not wait, and had to reach in and cover a piece himself.
Why does that wall grow out? Mostly because at the strength end the account will not reckon clear, the talk has no place to be said, and the man cannot leave. Of the three things chapter forty-four set, one or two short, and the position is empty, and an empty position never stays empty long.
So to pull the overstepping hand back, cursing the hand alone is no use, and the more it is cursed the tighter it reaches, for after it retreats that matter is still done by no one. The true way is to fill the emptied position: mend the floor-under road to go through a little, set the account in the open, leave a place for the talk to be said, hold the line that the man can leave.
This line can be held a lifetime: the hand reaches over, do not hurry to strike the hand, first look whether the position is empty. The position filled, the hand retreats of itself. The position left empty, strike this one back and another reaches over.
Six, what this section sets
What this section sets is a line: overstepping has only two shapes—managing too much and letting go too much—and the two pits are equally deep, for the question was never manage more or manage less, it is to whom this matter belongs. The three shapes of managing too much: the hand of need into the wage sheet, the hand of risk into the sickroom, the hand of force into the stock coming off. The three shapes of letting go too much: what should be floored not floored, what should be reckoned not reckoned, what should be watched not watched. Each side masked by a fine-sounding line, one someone has to manage, one less managing is best, both right, both short that half.
The way to pull the hand is three questions: which matter is this, which rule should measure it, why did that hand reach over. The third is deepest, for overstepping is often covering, and covering says the own position is empty. The next section closes this chapter, closes it on Confucius’ six words: the gentleman harmonizes and does not merely agree.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Three, Harmonize and Do Not Merely Agree, Not Agree and Be Out of Harmony