The tree they spared, the goose they killed

You're afraid of being replaced because somewhere along the way you converted yourself into a tool.

A younger person joined. Cheaper, faster at new things, uncomplicated about weekends. So you take on everything, and the more you take on, the blurrier the part that's actually worth money becomes.

Zhuangzi was walking in the mountains when he saw a woodcutter pass by a great tree without touching it. He asked why. The answer was that the wood was useless.

They came down and stayed at a friend's house. The friend wanted to kill a goose for dinner and the servant asked which one. The one that honks, or the one that doesn't. Kill the one that doesn't honk, said the friend.

The next day a student asked Zhuangzi the obvious question. Yesterday the tree lived because it was useless. Today the goose died because it was useless. Where do you stand.

Zhuangzi said: between usefulness and uselessness.

People laugh at that as evasion. I read it as refusing the ruler. Both animals were killed by the same sentence, just applied to different animals. He declined to answer the question in the terms it was asked.

There are parts of you that were never supposed to be priced, and parts that are. Knowing which is which protects both.

MOJOWAY starts from the person, not the output. You are not being measured here, which is the only condition under which most people can tell the truth about what they want.