Zhuangzi

The Loose Spot

Your shoelace is in a knot.
A tight, hard, grumpy knot.

You pull it. It gets tighter.
You pull harder. It gets worse.

So stop pulling.
Take a slow breath.

Now look for the loose spot.
Every knot has one.

A little gap. A soft place.
Slip your finger in there.

Wiggle it. Slow and gentle.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

And the knot lets go.

It comes loose in your hand.
You did that. With soft, slow hands.

That soft, slow way?
That was the strong way.

Say it with me:
Don’t yank. Find the loose spot.

It works on more than laces.
A tangled necklace. A kite string.
A ball of yarn in a mess.

Yanking makes a knot tighter.
Gentle hands find the way through.

You are still trying. You just try soft.
You are still strong. You just go slow.

So when something is stuck,
don’t yank.
Find the loose spot.
And wiggle it free.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This comes from the Zhuangzi, a book of Chinese stories more than 2,000 years old. In one story a cook carves a whole ox without dulling his knife, because he finds the natural gaps between the joints instead of hacking through bone. The book’s own word for this is wu wei, acting without forcing. Two honest notes keep the idea true: it doesn’t mean never working hard (the cook works with total care and slows right down at the tough spots), and it doesn’t mean nothing ever needs real strength or a grown-up’s help. Some stuck things do. The point is to stop yanking blindly and look first for where the thing already wants to give.

Through the Tube

Hold a tube up to your eye.
A paper towel tube. Look!

What do you see?
A little round circle of sky.

Maybe one cloud.
Maybe one bird.

Now take the tube away.
Whoa. Look at all that sky!

Clouds and birds and trees and sun.
The sky was always that big.
The tube just showed a little bit.

Say it with me:
There’s more than my tube.

A little bug lived in one tree.
A big, big bird flew over.
Up, up, up it went.

The bug laughed at the bird.
Why fly so high?

The bug’s whole world was one tree.
It could not see the big sky.

Sometimes we are like that bug.
We see a little bit.
We think it is everything.

What you see is real.
It just isn’t all of it.

So when a friend sees it different,
don’t laugh right away.
Ask them what they see.

There’s more than my tube.
Go look. Then look some more.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: Two stories sit under this one. In the book’s opening, a cicada and a little dove laugh at a giant bird for flying so high, because they can’t picture why anyone would. Later, a frog at the bottom of a well can’t be told about the ocean, and someone judging a great thinker is compared to looking at the sky through a tube. The primer keeps the part a child can use: your view is real but partial. The fuller book pushes much further, into whether any viewpoint can be called right at all, and readers have argued about that for centuries; this primer stays with the humbler, sturdier half.

Count Them Again

A man had some monkeys.
He gave them nuts to eat.

Three nuts in the morning, he said.
Four nuts at night.

The monkeys were so mad!
They jumped. They yelled. They stomped.

So the man said, okay.
Four in the morning. Three at night.

The monkeys cheered. Hooray!

But wait. Let’s count.
Three and four make seven.
Four and three make seven.

Same nuts. Same number.
Only the order changed.

Say it with me:
Count them again.

Your sandwich is cut in squares.
You wanted triangles!
You feel so mad.

It’s okay to feel mad.
Now take a breath.
Count the bites.

Same bread. Same yummy middle.
Same sandwich, just a new shape.

Your cup is the blue one.
You wanted the red one!
Both cups hold the same milk.

Sometimes it really is different.
Then say so, nice and clear.

But first, before the stomping,
take a breath.
And count them again.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: In the original story a monkey keeper offers three chestnuts in the morning and four at night, the monkeys rage, and he switches to four and three, which delights them. The book uses it for two points at once: people spend real anger on differences that aren’t there, and the keeper is wise to go along with a harmless preference, since it costs nothing. This primer teaches the first point and keeps the child’s feeling honest; you might add the second yourself, by sometimes cutting the triangles.