Cook Ding doesn't work hard — he follows the gaps already in the animal. Christine Abigail L Tan takes this image from Zhuangzi and holds it against the story meritocracy tells about achievement: that our talents are ours, our effort is the cause, our success is deserved. A piece that doesn't leave you guilty so much as oddly lightened.
No one is self-made
Zhuangzi didn't deny that people have gifts — he just wondered why we call them ours
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