The Book of Rites
Not even the sage kings could stay strung
One tension, one release: rest is scheduled, not squeezed out
The Book of Rites, 'Miscellaneous Records, Part Two', Zigong at the year-end festival
The moment I stop, I feel I'm slacking. This chapter says easing off is not a failure of will: the string was never meant to stay taut.
What actually happened?
Zigong came back from watching the year-end harvest festival. Confucius asked whether he had enjoyed it. The whole state has gone mad, Zigong said. I don't see what there is to enjoy. Confucius answered: a hundred days of toil, one day of grace. That is beyond you. Then he spoke of the bow. To keep it strung and never unstring it, Wen and Wu could not do; to keep it unstrung and never string it, they would not do.
It is a bow
The two words are archery words: stringing a bow and unstringing it. A bow left strung loses its spring and will not draw when you need it. The point is not that you lack effort. No bow, however good, stays strung.
Three months without a single day off messages, and you tell yourself you are building up strength.
'Could not' and 'would not' are different words
Never unstringing is something even the founding kings could not do. Never stringing is something they would not do. The lines are built as a pair and the verbs are chosen on purpose. This is not a licence to drift; each end has its own way of going wrong.
You take a month off and by the second week you are restless. That is the other end.
The release is put on the calendar
The festival fell on a fixed day, set for everyone, not left to each person to find. That is the part people miss. When everyone eases off together, nobody has to feel it is their own laziness. Rest squeezed out by willpower rarely arrives, and arrives with guilt.
The team agrees nobody sends messages on Saturday. That beats you alone not answering.
Zigong's eye is often our own
Zigong saw a city behaving like madmen and could not see the one day in the year it was allowed to let go. We read other people's rest as disorder, and our own the same way. The guilt that comes the moment we stop is Zigong standing at our shoulder.
A colleague leaves on time and you think he doesn't care. Then you can't leave either.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you haven't really stopped in a long time, and when you do you feel you're slacking, so you find something to do.
Ask first: is there a fixed day in my life, agreed with other people, when I ease off - not sleep caught up after a collapse, but a day set in advance?
Where it goes wrong: reading it as 'rest whenever you're tired, for as long as you like'. The two lines are a pair. The rhythm is the point, not only the release.
Lines to keep
Staying strung is not strength. Even the sage kings couldn't.
Rest goes on the calendar. It is not squeezed out.
Never easing off is impossible; never tightening is a choice.
Same situation, other people are asking
I can't remember the last time I actually let go.Am I heading for a collapse?I've been holding this long past what I can hold.The pressure isn't even that bad and I'm never off.I've been tense for a long time · all 5 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.