Adams county indiana property tax records

TW is for mentions of abuse and sexual assault, no intense descriptions.
I spent my 20s bouncing around living situations because my mom died without warning right before my High School graduation. We grew up dirt poor and I found out a few years ago that she was months behind on rent too, but the house was owned by my grandparents or else we would have been homeless.
A little over a decade later, I found out that a cousin had been pulling the strings behind the scenes and manipulated my grandfather to change over his will. I didn't find out about this until everything was all said and done. My college fund was taken as well, since it was in my mom and grandmother's name, so he got control of it. My cousin even got the house I was told in my teens that I would likely inherit.
The ONLY thing that didn't get stolen through elder abuse was an irrevocable trust set up in the early 90s by my grandparents. I'm the beneficary, and a certified financial planner who has been a friend of the family since the 80s is the trustee. Basically, I can't get money out of it on my own, I have to go through her and she's legally obligated to act in my best interests. Apparently, there was SOME money my cousin didn't know about that went into the trust per my grandmother's will. However, I'm no "trust fund baby". I can't go out and buy luxury items let alone rely on the Trust to pay all my living expenses for the rest of my life.
Here's another wonderful kicker: I'm disabled physically and mentally. Autism spectrum, PTSD, generalized anxiety and major depression (likely related to the trauma and distress over the years). I was born with stickler Syndrome, which is a degenerative connective tissue disorder. Marfan and Ehlers Danlos are more well-known but fall under the same general umbrella, but Stickler is basically that your body doesn't produce collagen correctly, leading to bone, heart, vision, and hearing problems varying in degree from person to person.
I already have severe enough joint problems that physical therapy can't fix. I have fissures, cysts, and completely worn down cartilage and I'm only in my early 30's. I can't walk or stand for more than 20 minutes without severe pain and risk of falls, and I'm not supposed to use stairs frequently. Even sitting for more than 4hrs a day with breaks causes pain.
I've also been having neurological issues including 24+hr headaches and week+ long vertigo that seems to crop up randomly (even today, I was staring right at my laptop screen when I suddenly felt like I was drunk for no reason) and am awaiting an appointment for imaging tests and possibly Multiple Sclerosis testing. All of these things- diagnosed and not yet diagnosed combined, primary care doctors and therapists have agreed that I should be on social security and shouldn't exacerbate some of my conditions by continuing to work (unless I can find something that's fully accommodating).
I grew up in PA but bounced all around during my housing instability. The year before Covid, I was put back into housing instability when my housemate could no longer afford her inherited home and had to sell, so I had to leave the first stable and SAFE home I'd had in almost a decade, and my accommodating job as a result. I struggled to find that stability again, and while Covid was the first time I felt like I wasn't under pressure to find that stability immediately (I was living with a friend) it did fuck up my chances of finding employment once things started opening up again. My friend wanted his rec room back and told me I needed to move out (something he says he now regrets doing, but I understand). My only option was to move with an online friend in CA.
That went spectacularly, by which I mean he turned out to be incredibly histrionic and unstable and almost rendered me homeless. Other online friends helped shack me up in a motel and then let me couch crash for a bit. I ended up losing half my stuff including things from my mom and all my art from the past decade, because he kept changing the goalposts on how and when I could come get my stuff, and technically I was living with him off his lease, and didn't want to render him and his 7yo homeless by trying to take legal action.
My partner is one of his former best friends. Former because he's completed disgusted by what was done to me, and has heard a lot of flat-out lies from this person as to what happened. Shit like saying "multiple therapists warned me about him" to make me look like a terrible person, when 1. He only had 1 therapist and she moved out of network 2 months before this went down so he had none. 2. Feeding a patient's negative thoughts about someone based on hearsay and conjecture is a MASSIVE liability and something any therapist worth their salt knows not to do.
I was working night audit at a small hotel from February of last year until December, when I was immediately pulled and put on state disability by my primary care doctor after a fall while I was alone at work. California's state disability aid is based off taxed income, so there's a limit to how long you can use it. Mine runs out July 1st and after that I have no income and can't work. In CALIFORNIA. A lot of our homeless are disabled because it's so impossible to live in this state if you can't work full time.
I will be applying for SSI, but up until last February, I had NO medical records due to not being able to afford health insurance or stay in one place long enough for appointments. I had my PTSD and depression diagnosis, but not even records of my Stickler birth defect. You need ample documentation to apply for Social Security, and with a rare birth defect and specialists often having to be scheduled months in advance, that's not quick and easy task. I'll FINALLY be applying late this summer.
I acknowledge I'm WAY luckier than most people in my situation, because of the Trust, but that's where my current hurdles are. Like I said, I can't just pull from it willy-nilly, which I'm grateful for in some ways as panic-spending might have depleted me a while ago.
Back in April, the Trustee said that I could get a mobile home in a park back home in east PA, up to 75k$ budget. There are homes in that range, but I also have to keep in mind location and lot rent. With SSI being 914$ federally (PA has no state supplement), obviously I can't go for a park with a 800+ lot rent even with assistance programs like SNAP and LIHEAP. PA isn't a rent capped state thanks to a lot of legislators owning rental properties, so landlords can legally increase rent by a hundred per year (and they have). Ever since the housing crisis, mobile home parks have become the affordable option, and some parks have been bought up by corporations who are trying to price out Social Security recipients so they can get more money from people trying to get out of apartment living but who can afford lot rents closer to apartment rent costs.
Today, my top choice home got scooped up, and the Trustee is saying that she would rather I move back and rent so I can go see the mobile homes in person rather than relying on a local friend to do the tour with me on video call. Which, yes, I agree, except...
How the fuck am I supposed to do that when no apartment- independently or company owned- will rent to me when I am not employed and my only source of income is an irrevocable Trust? My credit score is 684 and climbing, I have no debt history, my current housemates can vouch for me in terms of cleanliness, respect, and always paying rent in advance. Even with all that, landlords want things like last two pay stubs, proof of 2-3x rent in stable income, or someone else who has those things to be on the lease with me.
Room rentals? Also borderline impossible. It took me almost half a year to find my current room rental. I have a cat with an ESA letter, but that doesn't allow me past no pets policies in most room rentals. I also got ghosted more than half a dozen times when I was talking with someone about a rental and then informed them I'm transgender, which could be anything, but I'm willing to wager more often than not it was discriminatory. My physical disability also means I can't get anything that requires frequent stair use, like a basement or upper level room rental, or one of the many split-level historic homes that have been converted into the only low-income apartments in the area. There's even apartment buildings so old they don't legally need to have elevators.
Section 811 exists for disabled folks, but county and city housing agency I contacted either doesn't have it, or it requires you to already be in crisis and unhoused. Senior centers can accept up to 20% resident population that's non-elderly but disabled, but either have NYC luxury apartment prices because of the amenities, or a huge buy-in.
I'm just so. Utterly fucking exhausted.
I spent most of my formative adult years just trying to get stability, while spending my formative childhood years in deep poverty with a mother whose mental health was deeply impacted by a stroke she suffered when I was 16 who laid her hands on my throat once, would alternate between being a loving "hip" mom and screaming at me over mundane bullshit, and would constantly tell me that she could have another stroke and die if I upset her. In my housing instability, I've been sexually assaulted, verbally harassed, or just lived with couples who were constantly fighting.
I want a stable and safe home where I'm not at risk of having to move within ten years. Housing in general is ridiculous, but it's like for us disabled folks, unless we have family or a spouse to live with? Not even the housing options meant to keep us from ending up homeless are available.
I already have my plane ticket (fully refundable) back home for September 9th since I had to book early to get a good deal and lock in my cat's registration for the flight.
I'm just worried that even though I have an opportunity a lot of struggling people don't, I won't even be able to get anything.
If I'm being forced to find a rental, it would be a miracle if I find something in time that won't turn me away for having a cat, relying on Trust for income, being queer, or being unable to use stairs.
I don't want to settle for a mobile home, but likewise, I honestly just want safety and stability. I don't care if it's fucking grandma floral wallpaper and 70's bicolour shag carpet everywhere. It's mine, and the Social security administration is going to force me to spend before I hit 2k$ in assets anyway, may as well throw an entire Lowe's at it.
I know this is a lot, and I honestly don't expect anyone to read it, but I'm so fucking tired and I just want stability before I die (of old age or health, since I guess I'm genetically per-disposed to breast cancer and strokes on top of the rest of all this shit).

Ignorant here. Submitted a verbal offer on a piece of land that was sold in a tax sale by the county to the current owner. He owned it for a couple of years and lives in california. Seller is using a realtor who I talked to.
I called one title company that is charging $1000 for closing for a land purchase of 8k, insane? I felt so. I don't think I paid that when I bought my house.
The realtor said legally I had to close with a title company because it's a property listed by a realtor.... I didn't know that.

This is a project that's been living rent free in my head for awhile now, but only recently put into writing. Feel free to critique and or ask questions!
Long ago, a civilization many today call the Inter-Galactic Union (or IGU) created the relay network as a way to better regulate and ensure the safety of FTL travel. This network was comprised of three types of relays and several types of control stations, called Relay Control Centers (RCCs):

• RCC type 1 is the most numerous, these stations monitor any relay within 5 jumps regardless of type. It also has the capability to "relink" relays, often necessary in the face of interstellar drift. these stations are often found deactivated, but when an active one is found its sensor data is usually invaluable to any scholar. Normally found in the orbit of either a primary relay or the farthest planet from a star.
• RCC type 2 has 16 stations, but only 5 have been located by the current galactic community. regardless, this station type monitors all type 1 stations within its range, including (but not limited to) how many relays currently controlled, traffic between relays, activation status of a station, and most importantly the current positions of all active type 1 RCCs, active or not; this is made possible through check in pings. these stations do not move or drift, as they are anchored to a strategically placed black hole created by the IGU.
• RCC type 3 was only recently discovered anchored to the black hole at the center of the galaxy with the activation of a misaligned deep space telescope. Many theorize that it can activate or deactivate any relay in the galaxy.
• Primary relays make up the galaxy's interstellar highways, using a "warp corridor" to close the distance between each other. This type of relay has a range of 1,000 LY, according to records and attempts at realignment. Primary relays cannot be shut down once brought online.
• Secondary relays are the most numerous of the relays, able to connect to any secondary relay within 100 lightyears, but can connect to only one relay at a time. Several exotic designs of these relays have been discovered over the years, the most famous being the “Six Point Star Relay”, using a star shape to connect to 6 other relays without the need for rotating like a standard one.
• Tertiary relays are the largest relays, but are few and far between with unknown purpose

Many civilizations since the fall of the IGU nearly a billion years ago have made use of this network. with it's ease of use and ability to access more systems in a short amount of time typically leads to most every civilization that stumbles across it to scrap FTL research altogether. exceptions being those who were so xenophobic that once they found the relays they loaded their entire populous into sleeper ships and launched themselves at the andromeda galaxy (this has happened twice according to post-IGU civilization records).
Now for the current state of the galaxy:
The galactic community was founded roughly a century ago as a way to better regulate relay usage, but evolved into a forum in which galactic law is created. The Community has explored roughly half of the galaxy, no thanks to stellar drift moving a fair amount of relays out of range of each other and/or their RCCs. Many civilizations are in the community, but the most influential are the Imperil and the Unified Galactic Worlds (UGW).
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About an Eighth of the galaxy is controlled by the Imperil. An Enlightened Monarchy created by the Prixi and now has control over many vassals. The Imperil is the oldest interstellar civilization of the current age, but has been held back by internal strife, civil wars, slave uprisings, and political gridlock for much of its lifetime. It relies on the wider galaxy for innovation, providing protection for any who with to provide it with technology.
The current ruler (called an Imperi [male] or Imperia [female]) has made many reforms, such as the abolishment of slavery in all territory under Imperil influence, shifting control of the military from the Noble class to its own central command that reports to him, and the reform of the tax structure to place more pressure on the noble class rather than those below it.
However, these reforms have destabilized the power structure in the Imperil. Now many of the noble class is against the Imperi, but cannot remove or kill him due to his popularity among the people and the vassals' support of him. They fear that further instability would warrant galactic intervention, or worse, strip them of their wealth and status.
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Normally, a new addition to the galactic community is of little consequence or concern, but that was before the Unified Galactic Worlds was introduced. When the UGW was introduced to the wider galactic community, they were secretive and information was scarce for months, with the only information available to the wider community being that two species, called Kirmoth and Humanity. Then they lifted their iron curtain when they offered to take on the Galactic Network Project or GalNet Project.
The GalNet Project had been floating in the Community for years. The idea was simple, connect the galaxy with FTL communications so that couriers wouldn't be necessary. The initial research focused on technologies that could push normal communications through the "warp corridors" created by relays with nothing to show. Quantum entanglement is shown to be capable of FTL communication, but couldn't pass a lightyear in distance even when attempted with relays.
The UGW proposed what they called Subspace Entanglement. Using classified technology that utilizes properties similar to the relays' "warp corridor" but with key differences, allowing quantum entanglement to occur over galactic distances. When asked if the technology could be applied to starships, the UGW said "a version is in use on our vessels as a method of power generation and emergency FTL as well as communication, but cannot compete with the relays".
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Thank you for reading, i plan on posting more on the histories and technologies in the future.

Is the person who does the property tax assessment that did an "exterior physical inspection" (quoted from the assessment letter I received) allowed on your property? Do they walk around it? Or are they only allowed on the sidewalk/street? It feels like going into your backyard would be trespassing.

Hi all, I'm a customer for a local spring water business, and the (single, childless) sole owner is rapidly dying of cancer. Now that some of his customers have rallied and gotten his daily care coordinated (an ex-girlfriend, retired nurse is taking care of him with at home hospice care) I'm turning my attention to bringing his business infrastructure into the 21st century! I'll be taking it over and continuing the deliveries and business after he dies in the next few days/weeks.
I *desperately* need advice on which accounting software to use. I've used desktop Quicken for years for my personal finances but know it's old, cludgy and has plenty of competitors. I'd also welcome recommendations for an inexpensive but customer-friendly web payment processor and website authoring platform/software (his website was written with MS Frontpage 2002!!). I'm pretty comfortable with computers (I've done IT tech support for an ISP) but am hoping for a very short learning curve.
Here's his business model:
He has an artesian spring on his property. He sells up front shares in the spring to new customers, essentially a one-time membership fee of one share per bottle of water they will receive at each delivery. He based his business model on the way owners of goats, sheep and cows sell raw milk.
Each customer buys their own 3 gallon bottles, either from him, or they can supply their own. He delivers full bottles of water to a pre-arranged location at a particular time every Monday, so the customers have recurring subscriptions for their water deliveries. The customers subscribe for the number of bottles they want per delivery (1 - 10, as many bottles as they provide) and choose how often they wish to pick up their water at the delivery location. Customers can choose to pick up their water:

• Once per month (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th Monday)
• Twice per month (1st and third *or* 2nd and 4th Mondays)
• Weekly (4 or 5 times per month, every Monday)

He accepts payments by credit card (through PayPal subscriptions), or cash or checks on delivery. Customers can choose to pay:

• Annually
• Quarterly
• Monthly
• On delivery

He also sells empty bottles and some one-off items at a negligible markup either at the pickup location or through his website.
He pays quarterly state and county sales taxes.
Currently he's running this business using a notebook, old style receipt book, paper customer files, PayPal, his personal email and a *very* antiquated, confusing website. I'll pull out all of my hair (and I have a lot of it) if it continues like this!
Thank you in advance for your advice!

In my county, we just got our property tax assessments. According to a news report I read, 70% of homeowners are seeing a tax increase. According to the Nextdoor app, 100% of them are very pissed haha.
My home’s value went up $120,000 from last year. I want to appeal it. I’m reading so many folks giving so much different information. I have a realtor friend who worked up a comp sheet for me. I’ve also heard to include in my appeal a list of repairs that need to be done on the house (my house needs a paint job bad, plus some other stuff). What else should I be doing to prep for this appeal? ALSO- is there a sort of template that I should follow? Like… first this info, then this info, etc?

TL:DR - why is there no capital gains tax on non primary residence housing? Is it because everyone is terrified this will collapse the housing bubble?
Let me preface this first by saying that I understand Kiwis do things the way they do it, for better or for worse - I do not pretend to have a silver bullet and i dont want to tell people what to do - I'm merely trying to wrap my head around this issue as it has been puzzling me (and i have a personal interest in not renting forever).
My background is that I'm a banking specialist on the quantitative and interest rate risk side of things, and I'm also a chartered accountant, so I don't believe I come from a point of ignorance.
For context:

1. There is a housing crisis in NZ where it seems that it is becoming unaffordable for pretty much anyone who is not in the top 1% of the country's wealthy to ever own their own home (i.e. you need to be two highly paid professionals to feasibly buy a home and simultaneously afford a decent lifestyle and have other savings).
   
2. This seems to be caused by a lack of supply, but also a rather interesting approach to taxing wealth generation on property.
   
3. The country's overarching investment approach seems to be based on pouring savings into a mortgage. I'm not entirely sure what people live on in retirement, or if they sell the home and move somewhere cheaper.
   

The following seems to be the approach to trying to solve the crisis:

1. Reducing tax deductibility on interest on investment property (might be repealed by National)
2. Opening up more development space for property (seems to be a political argument with bo solution in sight between Labour, Greens and National)
3. Making it illegal for non-residents to buy housing (although there appears to be an investment property loophole if you buy in partnership with a resident). 4.?

Results: 1. Property prices do seem to have come down, and are supposedly at record lows, but it's almost a given they're going to accelerate once the rates cycle passes through. My estimate is we will see accelerating prices from mid 2024 onwards to fresh highs. 2. Supply doesn't seem to be changing meaningfully, particularly in Auckland. Probably a function of poor infrastructure and public transport not allowing development on the city outskirts, plus government dragging their heels on said development?
What I'm hoping someone will help me understand is: 1. Have meaningful discussions ever been had on capital gains tax on properties that are not your primary residence? 2. Is the reason for not introducing such a tax the terrifying prospect of collapsing the housing market, and erasing the retirement savings of most Kiwis? 3. Are there not concerns that there is a potential banking crisis in the offing, caused by inflated asset prices? There must be substantial wrong way risk on those mortgage portfolios.

1. What are some of your thoughts on solving the housing crisis? My view, as an outsider, is that if housing is sorted out, and some tweaks are made to the grocery prices, NZ becomes one of the best places to live in the world. It is still up there, even when compared to the likes of the UK, Canada, US, Ireland (maybe not quite Aus), but some small changes would make a startling difference.

Edit: When I refer to record lows, I should clarify that these are near term lows, and not long term lows. The point is more that these look like they're temporary, and not necessarily indicative of a continuously decreasing trend.

As discussed previously, in Zhuangzi we can find some core values of individualism, and it is not inappropriate to call it Zhuangzian individualism. However, just like all varieties of “individualism” which appear in different times and places, each with its own connotations and characteristics, due to its particular social-cultural and philosophical background as mentioned above, the Zhuangzian individualism also has its own special characteristics, which make it a unique pattern of individualism and distinguishable from some of its Western counterparts.
First, Zhuangzi does not understand “individual” in a Western metaphysical way; in other words, he does not think “individual” as an abstract and permanent “Being,” like an individual “atom.” This makes it different from atomistic or abstract individualism, such as that of Thomas Hobbes. According to Chad Hansen, individuals in the Western conceptual structure are “fixed, interchangeable units” (Hansen 1985: 36). However, for Zhuangzi, individuals are neither “fixed” nor “interchangeable.” Zhuangzi has a dynamic view on individuals. Individuals do exist, but they may change their features and property during their time of existing, so an individual human being is not something similar to a “fixed” atom, nor a constant “matter-in-motion.” In Chapters 25 and 27 of the Zhuangzi, two paragraphs describe QU Boyu and Confucius respectively: as “growing up to his sixty years old, he has changed sixty times. There was nothing what he called right in the beginning had not been rejected as wrong by himself in the end. We do not know whether what he called right today was just what he considered as wrong when he was 59 years old” (Zhuangzi 25: 51–52; 27: 10–11). So QU Boyu and Confucius, as individuals, change during their lives in both body and mind; they are dynamic and living beings, rather than “fixed” atoms.
While individuals are changeable, they are not interchangeable, because every individual is unique and different. In his discussion of the ethics of difference in the Zhuangzi, HUANG Yong has keenly perceived that Zhuangzi “pays attention to the differences among human beings in terms of their ideas and ideals, desires and preferences, and habits and customs, etc” (Huang 2010a: 71), and “The central idea of Zhuangzi’s ethics of difference is to respect the unique natural tendencies of different things” (Huang 2010b: 131062). A resumption of this kind of ethics of difference is that every individual is unique and different. Therefore, human individuals are not “fixed unites” that are “interchangeable” in a social mechanism. They may not function in the same way and play the same role under the same situation, as indicated in Zhuangzi’s allegories:
[A big house beam may be used to breach a city wall, but it cannot be used to plug a small hole, which is to say the implements are different. A swift horse may gallop thousand miles a day, but for catching rats it is not as good as a weasel, which is to say their skills are different. An owl can catch fleas and discern the tip of a hair at night, but in the daytime with its eyes open it can’t even see the mountains, which is to say that natures are different. (Zhuangzi, 17:35–37)]
Therefore, no unified principles or norms can be applied to all of them without discrimination, as indicated in Zhuangzi: “Although the legs of a duck are too short, if we try to extend them the duck will be scared and worry. Although the legs of a crane are too long, if we try to cut them short the crane will be in horror and sadness” (Zhuangzi 8:9–10). These allegories in the Zhuangzi, as HUANG Yong pointed out, metaphorically tell us how human beings should act with each other (Huang 2010b: 1057) and be aware of the different needs, desires, and preferences of individuals. Actually, if individuals are treated as only interchangeable atoms, or just as “matter-in-motion,” it will unavoidably lead to certain general assertions on them, as well as some common principles or norms to regulate them. In terms of social politics, that will be social laws, regulations, and moral standards. This is a trend that Zhuangzi opposes. In other words, in the Zhuangzi, individuals are treated more particularly and respectively than in other theories of individualism in which individuals are understood as fixed, abstract, and interchangeable “atoms.”
Second, Zhuangzi thinks that the only thing that an individual mind or the “self” has to conform to is the unlimited and indefinable Dao. This actually has the significance of releasing the individual mind into a totally free and unconstrained realm of nothingness or emptiness, thus endorsing an infinite openness to any possible development of all individuals. Erica Brindley points out that Zhuangzi advocates conformism to the Dao: “individual relationship to the Dao is characterized not by dependence on political institutions or the central figure of the sovereign, but by direct, individual access to it through one’s own person” (Brindley 2010: 55). At first look, this is quite similar to Western religious individualism, which claims that the individual’s relation to God is direct and unmediated, and an individual builds his or her own relationship with God by self-scrutiny without any intermediaries such as a church or a sect. However, Dao is not the God. The essence of Dao is only everything’s “zi ran” or spontaneousness. The spontaneity of everything works automatically and perfectly, which is Dao. Dao does not have any will or intention, as God does. There is no clear definition of Dao in the Zhuangzi, except some descriptions of its nothingness, emptiness, infiniteness, and doing nothing: “The Dao has no boundaries” (Zhuangzi 2: 55); “The great Dao cannot be named” (Zhuangzi 2: 59); “It has no action or forms” (Zhuangzi 6: 29). As Brindley has also correctly observed, Dao is not a concrete, bounded entity; it is unbounded nothingness (Brindley 2010: 58). Therefore, individuals’ conforming to Dao or being together with Dao amounts to being in a realm of the boundless and limitless nothingness, or, using Zhuangzi’s words, wandering in a “wu he you zhi xiang 無何有之鄉” or “the country of nothingness” (Zhuangzi 1: 46; 7: 9–10; 32: 21). In this “country of nothingness,” everything moves and changes spontaneously along with the cosmos, which is Dao. Therefore, conforming to Dao does not mean conforming to an outside authority; it means to let the individual mind wander in an infinite realm and become what CHEN Guying has emphasized, the “open mind” (Chen 2009). Individuals in this realm are totally free and open, much freer than when bound with each other by common moralities or social contracts. It is just like the fish that, having once run aground, helped each other with their saliva and slime to survive; but it would be much better to let them return to their mutually disinterested original situation: “forget with each other in the rivers and lakes” (Zhuangzi 6: 22–23). It is because it conforms to Dao rather than to God or any other religious divinity that Zhuangzian individualism is not likely to be carried to the extreme and become absolutely egocentric and intolerant to others, like the Calvinists have demonstrated (Lukes 1973: 84), since conforming to Dao only means unlimited freedom and unbounded openness to the spontaneousness of every individual and unique thing.
Furthermore, since there is no need for a persistent or stubborn attitude toward anything when the individual spirit is conforming to the free, open, and dynamic Dao, one will also keep an open, free, and flexible attitude toward one’s own “completed mind” (chen xin 成心) or already constructed “self.” This is what happened in the process of “fasting of the mind” and “sitting and forgetting,” in two episodes in Chapters 4 and 6, when YAN Hui, Confucius’s favorite disciple, practiced a kind of self meditation under the instruction of his Master and finally reached the advanced stage of forgetting his body and mind (Zhuangzi 4: 24–34; 6: 89–93). Nevertheless, the so called “forgetting one’s self”—for instance, at the beginning of Chapter 2, when NANGUO Ziqi says to YANCHENG Ziyou: “Now I have lost myself” (Zhuangzi 2: 3)—does not mean that the individual “self” has totally dissolved or disappeared, physically or mentally. Just as some scholars have correctly analyzed (Chen 2001; Yang 2005), there are two different “selves” in the sentence “Now I have lost myself.” The first is the original and innate self, which is as free, open, and spontaneous as the Dao itself; the other is the socially constructed self, which is fixed, closed, and constrained by his or her worldly existence. What should be forgotten and lost is the latter, not the former. Otherwise, we would not be able to understand why in other places Zhuangzi mocks and denounces those worldly people for “having lost their selves in materials” (Zhuangzi 16: 21), and “conducting for fame but having lost self” (Zhuangzi 6: 12). In general, when Zhuangzi urges an individual to conform to Dao, he actually has released the individual mind into a boundless free realm, where it will no longer be constrained by even its own socially constructed “self,” let alone any other political, social, and cultural control and restrictions.
Third, Zhuangzi’s individualism is a kind of “inward individualism” rather than “outward individualism.” By “inward individualism,” I mean that Zhuangzi advocates and pursues individuality by exploring the innate and intrinsic self of individuals, rather than claiming and expanding outside interests and rights for individuals. This feature is partly due to the autarkical small-scale farming economy of his time, as I have mentioned previously, and it also makes the Zhuangzian individualism different from the economic and social-political individualism in modern Western culture, which makes great effort to draw a clear boundary of individuals’ ownership, encourages individuals to actively assert, pursue, and protect the interests and benefits supposed to belong to them from outside, and aggressively compete for individual success and achievement in social reality. Zhuangzi, in contrast, cares much more about an individual’s own body and spiritual freedom, rather than the individual’s material interests, economic benefits, and political rights in the outside social reality. As Judith Berling has pointed out, Zhuangzi’s “position is call not for the rights of the individual, but for a shift of attention from social and political issues to another dimension of life” (Berling 1985: 101).
In terms of economy, Zhuangzi’s individualism advocates a care-less attitude toward any material gains and profits. This is contrary to some Western economic individualists, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, who emphasize individual ownership of property and material goods. Zhuangzi thinks that in order to preserve and nourish real individual life, one should neglect material interests, as he states in Chapter 28: “he who nourishes his bodily form forgets about gain of interests” (Zhuangzi 28: 51); and “he who regards life as important will look upon material interests as insignificant” (Zhuangzi 28: 56–57). He thinks that only when you are indifferent to those outside gains and profits will you be able to preserve your true independence, as all those material goods and outside benefits are just burdens for spiritual freedom. One should not use oneself as a tool in order to gain those things. This also makes Zhuangzi’s individualism different from that of utilitarianism, represented by Western philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who take a calculating attitude toward gain and loss of interests and benefits.
In politics, in contrast to the modern Western individualism in the context of political democracy, which emphasizes the individual’s participation in politics and engagement in public affairs, Zhuangzi thinks that individuals should detach themselves from political institutions and public affairs. Many of his stories dissuade people from involvement in politics. Zhuangzi himself, as well as many other Daoist masters, is only interested in the issue of how to manage his own body (zhi shen 治身) and pursue longevity of individual life, rather than the issue of how to manage the state (zhi guo 治國) and society. As recorded in Chapter 11, when the Yellow Emperor came to consult Master Guang Cheng about the Way of governing the world, Master Guang Cheng was not interested and did not teach him anything. But after the Yellow Emperor gave up his throne and came back again to consult him about the “Way of governing body,” Master Guang Cheng sat up with a start and talked with him about how to protect the individual spirit and body and enjoy long life, with the essential of “being cautious of what is within you; blocking off what is outside you” (Zhuangzi 11: 28–44). Obviously, Master GUANG Cheng’s way of governing the body is to cut off as much as possible the links between the self and society, withdrawing to one’s own self consciousness. Most of the men Zhuangzi admired were those who “lofty in principle and meticulous in conduct, delighting in their own will alone without serving in public affairs” (Zhuangzi 28: 86–87). They considered their own body much “heavier” than the state and society, and did not want to consent to the existing political authority or take political responsibility or social obligation.
As a result, Zhuangzian individualism does not encourage social-economic contention or competition. This is quite different from certain versions of modern Western individualism, which take social Darwinism as their proposition, based on the belief that if everyone contends in pursuing gain and interests for themselves, the well-being of a society will improve in general, thus justifying ruthless rivalry among individuals in business and politics (Lukes 1973: 39). Here also lies a fundamental difference between Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, despite their similarities in other aspects. Nietzsche’s “will to power” theory encourages individuals to contend and even justifies the stronger conquering the weaker. His individualism is quite outwardly expanding and aggressive, while in a general Daoist view, fighting, rivalry, and contention are all of negative significance. From the angle of state politics, the Daoist doctrine of “wu wei 無為” (doing-nothing, inactivity) means no intervention and letting people take their own course, which has a similar connotation to “laissez-faire.” But from the angle of individual personality, “wu wei” also means “bu zheng 不爭” (no rivalry, no contention), a personal merit of no contending, no rivalry with others. There is no incentive element in Zhuangzi’s thought to encourage individuals to contend for outside success and achievement. His individualism is defensive rather than aggressive, inward rather than outward. Therefore, it should be exempt from the common socialist criticism of certain Western individualism, “as arming one human being against another, making the good of each depend upon evil to others, making all who have anything to gain or lose, live in the midst of enemies” (Mill 1967: 444).
5 Conclusion
We have found some values in the Zhuangzi, which can be reasonably regarded as belonging to individualism. It is Daoist individualism. The unique Daoist individualism represented in the Zhuangzi has a profound and deep influence on the later development of Chinese culture. However, due to its special characteristics discussed above, it has not become a fundamental resource for thinking about social, political, or economic revolution, as some versions of modern Western individualism functioned in the West. Nor has it played any role in constructing social, political, and economic institutions based on civil rights and interests and the contracts among individuals or between individuals and institutions.
Nevertheless, Zhuangzian individualism does provide an ideological resource for those who want to take a disobedient attitude toward political authorities, criticize autocracy and absolutism, keep their own mind in a free realm, and protect their independent personality. This is especially obvious in the thoughts and behaviors of some literati and intellectuals. Almost all the extraordinary, unusual, and eccentric figures in the history of Chinese literature and culture, such as TAO Yuanming, JI Kan, RUAN Ji, LI Po, SU Dongpo, and GONG Zizhen, among many others, are influenced by Zhuangzi and his thought. They find a cultural and spiritual space in Zhuangzian individualism, where they can reside with their unique personality and develop their individuality freely.
At the same time, due to its “inward” feature and emphasis only on spiritual individuality, Zhuangzian individualism does not cause any major collision with Confucianism, despite its disagreement with Confucianism in many aspects. It provides an alternative value choice for those who want to temporarily or permanently withdraw from the engagement required by common cultural custom or established social standards, thus to protect their individuality. Therefore, it has been an important and indispensable complement of the mainstream cultural tradition represented by Confucianism, which comparatively put more emphasis on the collectivity of family, group, state, and nation, and the value of the social order and political authority.
Furthermore, Zhuangzian individualism also provides an alternative angle for us to understand human beings as individuals different from the Western metaphysical perspective: individual persons are not like fixed, interchangeable, and forever “indivisible” physical “atoms,” individuals exists only temporarily in times, and one individual is not interchangeable with other individuals, because they are all different and unique; but it is changeable during the time of his or her existence, because the ultimate Dao is just the spontaneous change of everything. It is just this changeability that makes an individual really a free human being.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and revision suggestions on an earlier version of this paper
From: A Different Type of Individualism in Zhuangzi by XU Keqian 徐克謙

As discussed previously, in Zhuangzi we can find some core values of individualism, and it is not inappropriate to call it Zhuangzian individualism. However, just like all varieties of “individualism” which appear in different times and places, each with its own connotations and characteristics, due to its particular social-cultural and philosophical background as mentioned above, the Zhuangzian individualism also has its own special characteristics, which make it a unique pattern of individualism and distinguishable from some of its Western counterparts.
First, Zhuangzi does not understand “individual” in a Western metaphysical way; in other words, he does not think “individual” as an abstract and permanent “Being,” like an individual “atom.” This makes it different from atomistic or abstract individualism, such as that of Thomas Hobbes. According to Chad Hansen, individuals in the Western conceptual structure are “fixed, interchangeable units” (Hansen 1985: 36). However, for Zhuangzi, individuals are neither “fixed” nor “interchangeable.” Zhuangzi has a dynamic view on individuals. Individuals do exist, but they may change their features and property during their time of existing, so an individual human being is not something similar to a “fixed” atom, nor a constant “matter-in-motion.” In Chapters 25 and 27 of the Zhuangzi, two paragraphs describe QU Boyu and Confucius respectively: as “growing up to his sixty years old, he has changed sixty times. There was nothing what he called right in the beginning had not been rejected as wrong by himself in the end. We do not know whether what he called right today was just what he considered as wrong when he was 59 years old” (Zhuangzi 25: 51–52; 27: 10–11). So QU Boyu and Confucius, as individuals, change during their lives in both body and mind; they are dynamic and living beings, rather than “fixed” atoms.
While individuals are changeable, they are not interchangeable, because every individual is unique and different. In his discussion of the ethics of difference in the Zhuangzi, HUANG Yong has keenly perceived that Zhuangzi “pays attention to the differences among human beings in terms of their ideas and ideals, desires and preferences, and habits and customs, etc” (Huang 2010a: 71), and “The central idea of Zhuangzi’s ethics of difference is to respect the unique natural tendencies of different things” (Huang 2010b: 131062). A resumption of this kind of ethics of difference is that every individual is unique and different. Therefore, human individuals are not “fixed unites” that are “interchangeable” in a social mechanism. They may not function in the same way and play the same role under the same situation, as indicated in Zhuangzi’s allegories:
[A big house beam may be used to breach a city wall, but it cannot be used to plug a small hole, which is to say the implements are different. A swift horse may gallop thousand miles a day, but for catching rats it is not as good as a weasel, which is to say their skills are different. An owl can catch fleas and discern the tip of a hair at night, but in the daytime with its eyes open it can’t even see the mountains, which is to say that natures are different. (Zhuangzi, 17:35–37)]
Therefore, no unified principles or norms can be applied to all of them without discrimination, as indicated in Zhuangzi: “Although the legs of a duck are too short, if we try to extend them the duck will be scared and worry. Although the legs of a crane are too long, if we try to cut them short the crane will be in horror and sadness” (Zhuangzi 8:9–10). These allegories in the Zhuangzi, as HUANG Yong pointed out, metaphorically tell us how human beings should act with each other (Huang 2010b: 1057) and be aware of the different needs, desires, and preferences of individuals. Actually, if individuals are treated as only interchangeable atoms, or just as “matter-in-motion,” it will unavoidably lead to certain general assertions on them, as well as some common principles or norms to regulate them. In terms of social politics, that will be social laws, regulations, and moral standards. This is a trend that Zhuangzi opposes. In other words, in the Zhuangzi, individuals are treated more particularly and respectively than in other theories of individualism in which individuals are understood as fixed, abstract, and interchangeable “atoms.”
Second, Zhuangzi thinks that the only thing that an individual mind or the “self” has to conform to is the unlimited and indefinable Dao. This actually has the significance of releasing the individual mind into a totally free and unconstrained realm of nothingness or emptiness, thus endorsing an infinite openness to any possible development of all individuals. Erica Brindley points out that Zhuangzi advocates conformism to the Dao: “individual relationship to the Dao is characterized not by dependence on political institutions or the central figure of the sovereign, but by direct, individual access to it through one’s own person” (Brindley 2010: 55). At first look, this is quite similar to Western religious individualism, which claims that the individual’s relation to God is direct and unmediated, and an individual builds his or her own relationship with God by self-scrutiny without any intermediaries such as a church or a sect. However, Dao is not the God. The essence of Dao is only everything’s “zi ran” or spontaneousness. The spontaneity of everything works automatically and perfectly, which is Dao. Dao does not have any will or intention, as God does. There is no clear definition of Dao in the Zhuangzi, except some descriptions of its nothingness, emptiness, infiniteness, and doing nothing: “The Dao has no boundaries” (Zhuangzi 2: 55); “The great Dao cannot be named” (Zhuangzi 2: 59); “It has no action or forms” (Zhuangzi 6: 29). As Brindley has also correctly observed, Dao is not a concrete, bounded entity; it is unbounded nothingness (Brindley 2010: 58). Therefore, individuals’ conforming to Dao or being together with Dao amounts to being in a realm of the boundless and limitless nothingness, or, using Zhuangzi’s words, wandering in a “wu he you zhi xiang 無何有之鄉” or “the country of nothingness” (Zhuangzi 1: 46; 7: 9–10; 32: 21). In this “country of nothingness,” everything moves and changes spontaneously along with the cosmos, which is Dao. Therefore, conforming to Dao does not mean conforming to an outside authority; it means to let the individual mind wander in an infinite realm and become what CHEN Guying has emphasized, the “open mind” (Chen 2009). Individuals in this realm are totally free and open, much freer than when bound with each other by common moralities or social contracts. It is just like the fish that, having once run aground, helped each other with their saliva and slime to survive; but it would be much better to let them return to their mutually disinterested original situation: “forget with each other in the rivers and lakes” (Zhuangzi 6: 22–23). It is because it conforms to Dao rather than to God or any other religious divinity that Zhuangzian individualism is not likely to be carried to the extreme and become absolutely egocentric and intolerant to others, like the Calvinists have demonstrated (Lukes 1973: 84), since conforming to Dao only means unlimited freedom and unbounded openness to the spontaneousness of every individual and unique thing.
Furthermore, since there is no need for a persistent or stubborn attitude toward anything when the individual spirit is conforming to the free, open, and dynamic Dao, one will also keep an open, free, and flexible attitude toward one’s own “completed mind” (chen xin 成心) or already constructed “self.” This is what happened in the process of “fasting of the mind” and “sitting and forgetting,” in two episodes in Chapters 4 and 6, when YAN Hui, Confucius’s favorite disciple, practiced a kind of self meditation under the instruction of his Master and finally reached the advanced stage of forgetting his body and mind (Zhuangzi 4: 24–34; 6: 89–93). Nevertheless, the so called “forgetting one’s self”—for instance, at the beginning of Chapter 2, when NANGUO Ziqi says to YANCHENG Ziyou: “Now I have lost myself” (Zhuangzi 2: 3)—does not mean that the individual “self” has totally dissolved or disappeared, physically or mentally. Just as some scholars have correctly analyzed (Chen 2001; Yang 2005), there are two different “selves” in the sentence “Now I have lost myself.” The first is the original and innate self, which is as free, open, and spontaneous as the Dao itself; the other is the socially constructed self, which is fixed, closed, and constrained by his or her worldly existence. What should be forgotten and lost is the latter, not the former. Otherwise, we would not be able to understand why in other places Zhuangzi mocks and denounces those worldly people for “having lost their selves in materials” (Zhuangzi 16: 21), and “conducting for fame but having lost self” (Zhuangzi 6: 12). In general, when Zhuangzi urges an individual to conform to Dao, he actually has released the individual mind into a boundless free realm, where it will no longer be constrained by even its own socially constructed “self,” let alone any other political, social, and cultural control and restrictions.
Third, Zhuangzi’s individualism is a kind of “inward individualism” rather than “outward individualism.” By “inward individualism,” I mean that Zhuangzi advocates and pursues individuality by exploring the innate and intrinsic self of individuals, rather than claiming and expanding outside interests and rights for individuals. This feature is partly due to the autarkical small-scale farming economy of his time, as I have mentioned previously, and it also makes the Zhuangzian individualism different from the economic and social-political individualism in modern Western culture, which makes great effort to draw a clear boundary of individuals’ ownership, encourages individuals to actively assert, pursue, and protect the interests and benefits supposed to belong to them from outside, and aggressively compete for individual success and achievement in social reality. Zhuangzi, in contrast, cares much more about an individual’s own body and spiritual freedom, rather than the individual’s material interests, economic benefits, and political rights in the outside social reality. As Judith Berling has pointed out, Zhuangzi’s “position is call not for the rights of the individual, but for a shift of attention from social and political issues to another dimension of life” (Berling 1985: 101).
In terms of economy, Zhuangzi’s individualism advocates a care-less attitude toward any material gains and profits. This is contrary to some Western economic individualists, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, who emphasize individual ownership of property and material goods. Zhuangzi thinks that in order to preserve and nourish real individual life, one should neglect material interests, as he states in Chapter 28: “he who nourishes his bodily form forgets about gain of interests” (Zhuangzi 28: 51); and “he who regards life as important will look upon material interests as insignificant” (Zhuangzi 28: 56–57). He thinks that only when you are indifferent to those outside gains and profits will you be able to preserve your true independence, as all those material goods and outside benefits are just burdens for spiritual freedom. One should not use oneself as a tool in order to gain those things. This also makes Zhuangzi’s individualism different from that of utilitarianism, represented by Western philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who take a calculating attitude toward gain and loss of interests and benefits.
In politics, in contrast to the modern Western individualism in the context of political democracy, which emphasizes the individual’s participation in politics and engagement in public affairs, Zhuangzi thinks that individuals should detach themselves from political institutions and public affairs. Many of his stories dissuade people from involvement in politics. Zhuangzi himself, as well as many other Daoist masters, is only interested in the issue of how to manage his own body (zhi shen 治身) and pursue longevity of individual life, rather than the issue of how to manage the state (zhi guo 治國) and society. As recorded in Chapter 11, when the Yellow Emperor came to consult Master Guang Cheng about the Way of governing the world, Master Guang Cheng was not interested and did not teach him anything. But after the Yellow Emperor gave up his throne and came back again to consult him about the “Way of governing body,” Master Guang Cheng sat up with a start and talked with him about how to protect the individual spirit and body and enjoy long life, with the essential of “being cautious of what is within you; blocking off what is outside you” (Zhuangzi 11: 28–44). Obviously, Master GUANG Cheng’s way of governing the body is to cut off as much as possible the links between the self and society, withdrawing to one’s own self consciousness. Most of the men Zhuangzi admired were those who “lofty in principle and meticulous in conduct, delighting in their own will alone without serving in public affairs” (Zhuangzi 28: 86–87). They considered their own body much “heavier” than the state and society, and did not want to consent to the existing political authority or take political responsibility or social obligation.
As a result, Zhuangzian individualism does not encourage social-economic contention or competition. This is quite different from certain versions of modern Western individualism, which take social Darwinism as their proposition, based on the belief that if everyone contends in pursuing gain and interests for themselves, the well-being of a society will improve in general, thus justifying ruthless rivalry among individuals in business and politics (Lukes 1973: 39). Here also lies a fundamental difference between Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, despite their similarities in other aspects. Nietzsche’s “will to power” theory encourages individuals to contend and even justifies the stronger conquering the weaker. His individualism is quite outwardly expanding and aggressive, while in a general Daoist view, fighting, rivalry, and contention are all of negative significance. From the angle of state politics, the Daoist doctrine of “wu wei 無為” (doing-nothing, inactivity) means no intervention and letting people take their own course, which has a similar connotation to “laissez-faire.” But from the angle of individual personality, “wu wei” also means “bu zheng 不爭” (no rivalry, no contention), a personal merit of no contending, no rivalry with others. There is no incentive element in Zhuangzi’s thought to encourage individuals to contend for outside success and achievement. His individualism is defensive rather than aggressive, inward rather than outward. Therefore, it should be exempt from the common socialist criticism of certain Western individualism, “as arming one human being against another, making the good of each depend upon evil to others, making all who have anything to gain or lose, live in the midst of enemies” (Mill 1967: 444).
5 Conclusion
We have found some values in the Zhuangzi, which can be reasonably regarded as belonging to individualism. It is Daoist individualism. The unique Daoist individualism represented in the Zhuangzi has a profound and deep influence on the later development of Chinese culture. However, due to its special characteristics discussed above, it has not become a fundamental resource for thinking about social, political, or economic revolution, as some versions of modern Western individualism functioned in the West. Nor has it played any role in constructing social, political, and economic institutions based on civil rights and interests and the contracts among individuals or between individuals and institutions.
Nevertheless, Zhuangzian individualism does provide an ideological resource for those who want to take a disobedient attitude toward political authorities, criticize autocracy and absolutism, keep their own mind in a free realm, and protect their independent personality. This is especially obvious in the thoughts and behaviors of some literati and intellectuals. Almost all the extraordinary, unusual, and eccentric figures in the history of Chinese literature and culture, such as TAO Yuanming, JI Kan, RUAN Ji, LI Po, SU Dongpo, and GONG Zizhen, among many others, are influenced by Zhuangzi and his thought. They find a cultural and spiritual space in Zhuangzian individualism, where they can reside with their unique personality and develop their individuality freely.
At the same time, due to its “inward” feature and emphasis only on spiritual individuality, Zhuangzian individualism does not cause any major collision with Confucianism, despite its disagreement with Confucianism in many aspects. It provides an alternative value choice for those who want to temporarily or permanently withdraw from the engagement required by common cultural custom or established social standards, thus to protect their individuality. Therefore, it has been an important and indispensable complement of the mainstream cultural tradition represented by Confucianism, which comparatively put more emphasis on the collectivity of family, group, state, and nation, and the value of the social order and political authority.
Furthermore, Zhuangzian individualism also provides an alternative angle for us to understand human beings as individuals different from the Western metaphysical perspective: individual persons are not like fixed, interchangeable, and forever “indivisible” physical “atoms,” individuals exists only temporarily in times, and one individual is not interchangeable with other individuals, because they are all different and unique; but it is changeable during the time of his or her existence, because the ultimate Dao is just the spontaneous change of everything. It is just this changeability that makes an individual really a free human being.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and revision suggestions on an earlier version of this paper
From: A Different Type of Individualism in Zhuangzi by XU Keqian 徐克謙

Hello everyone,
I recently joined this sub and have been enjoying the oscillations between deal-breakers and no-big-deals! Thanks for all of the great tips and some great laughs.
I've stumbled upon a few potential red flags on my SF86 and I'm hoping for some insight and advice.
• I'm self-employed with an unstable income as a post-production audio engineer for the past 7 years
•I’ve lived at a property that my mother owns for 12 years
• I have an underage drinking charge from 2010.
• My current debt is around $20K from wedding expenses from last year, but except for one late auto payment mistake, I have been consistent with payments. Additionally on my credit report I'm a signer on my mother's and wife's credit cards, which are all in good standing with perfect payments. I have one $750 medical bill in collections due to a Covid ER visit in 2020 when I was uninsured.
• My substance history includes occasional marijuana usage from 2018-2020, but I've been otherwise substance-free for 7+ years.
• I have no foreign contacts or foreign interests of any kind
However, my main concern is recently discovered tax liens of $4800 from LA county. This was due to ignorance about unpaid luxury taxes on a boat under my mother's and my name. I'm concerned that this might automatically disqualify me, particularly for my interim.
I discovered this 2 days ago with an online background check on myself and I'm urgently trying to resolve it before I fill out my SF86 next week, so that I can list them as resolved. I haven’t had any responsibility for the boat itself for ten years, but my mother doesn’t currently have the funds. I don't have the funds either, but I may be able to get help from my father (we have a strained relationship and I’m really not happy about going to him for help). My goal is to get my interim granted so that I can start a job I'm genuinely excited and passionate about in software engineering. The company is a government contractor.
Does anyone have experience or advice on how to navigate this situation? I plan on using additional comments to mitigate. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

As discussed previously, in Zhuangzi we can find some core values of individualism, and it is not inappropriate to call it Zhuangzian individualism. However, just like all varieties of “individualism” which appear in different times and places, each with its own connotations and characteristics, due to its particular social-cultural and philosophical background as mentioned above, the Zhuangzian individualism also has its own special characteristics, which make it a unique pattern of individualism and distinguishable from some of its Western counterparts.
First, Zhuangzi does not understand “individual” in a Western metaphysical way; in other words, he does not think “individual” as an abstract and permanent “Being,” like an individual “atom.” This makes it different from atomistic or abstract individualism, such as that of Thomas Hobbes. According to Chad Hansen, individuals in the Western conceptual structure are “fixed, interchangeable units” (Hansen 1985: 36). However, for Zhuangzi, individuals are neither “fixed” nor “interchangeable.” Zhuangzi has a dynamic view on individuals. Individuals do exist, but they may change their features and property during their time of existing, so an individual human being is not something similar to a “fixed” atom, nor a constant “matter-in-motion.” In Chapters 25 and 27 of the Zhuangzi, two paragraphs describe QU Boyu and Confucius respectively: as “growing up to his sixty years old, he has changed sixty times. There was nothing what he called right in the beginning had not been rejected as wrong by himself in the end. We do not know whether what he called right today was just what he considered as wrong when he was 59 years old” (Zhuangzi 25: 51–52; 27: 10–11). So QU Boyu and Confucius, as individuals, change during their lives in both body and mind; they are dynamic and living beings, rather than “fixed” atoms.
While individuals are changeable, they are not interchangeable, because every individual is unique and different. In his discussion of the ethics of difference in the Zhuangzi, HUANG Yong has keenly perceived that Zhuangzi “pays attention to the differences among human beings in terms of their ideas and ideals, desires and preferences, and habits and customs, etc” (Huang 2010a: 71), and “The central idea of Zhuangzi’s ethics of difference is to respect the unique natural tendencies of different things” (Huang 2010b: 131062). A resumption of this kind of ethics of difference is that every individual is unique and different. Therefore, human individuals are not “fixed unites” that are “interchangeable” in a social mechanism. They may not function in the same way and play the same role under the same situation, as indicated in Zhuangzi’s allegories:
[A big house beam may be used to breach a city wall, but it cannot be used to plug a small hole, which is to say the implements are different. A swift horse may gallop thousand miles a day, but for catching rats it is not as good as a weasel, which is to say their skills are different. An owl can catch fleas and discern the tip of a hair at night, but in the daytime with its eyes open it can’t even see the mountains, which is to say that natures are different. (Zhuangzi, 17:35–37)]
Therefore, no unified principles or norms can be applied to all of them without discrimination, as indicated in Zhuangzi: “Although the legs of a duck are too short, if we try to extend them the duck will be scared and worry. Although the legs of a crane are too long, if we try to cut them short the crane will be in horror and sadness” (Zhuangzi 8:9–10). These allegories in the Zhuangzi, as HUANG Yong pointed out, metaphorically tell us how human beings should act with each other (Huang 2010b: 1057) and be aware of the different needs, desires, and preferences of individuals. Actually, if individuals are treated as only interchangeable atoms, or just as “matter-in-motion,” it will unavoidably lead to certain general assertions on them, as well as some common principles or norms to regulate them. In terms of social politics, that will be social laws, regulations, and moral standards. This is a trend that Zhuangzi opposes. In other words, in the Zhuangzi, individuals are treated more particularly and respectively than in other theories of individualism in which individuals are understood as fixed, abstract, and interchangeable “atoms.”
Second, Zhuangzi thinks that the only thing that an individual mind or the “self” has to conform to is the unlimited and indefinable Dao. This actually has the significance of releasing the individual mind into a totally free and unconstrained realm of nothingness or emptiness, thus endorsing an infinite openness to any possible development of all individuals. Erica Brindley points out that Zhuangzi advocates conformism to the Dao: “individual relationship to the Dao is characterized not by dependence on political institutions or the central figure of the sovereign, but by direct, individual access to it through one’s own person” (Brindley 2010: 55). At first look, this is quite similar to Western religious individualism, which claims that the individual’s relation to God is direct and unmediated, and an individual builds his or her own relationship with God by self-scrutiny without any intermediaries such as a church or a sect. However, Dao is not the God. The essence of Dao is only everything’s “zi ran” or spontaneousness. The spontaneity of everything works automatically and perfectly, which is Dao. Dao does not have any will or intention, as God does. There is no clear definition of Dao in the Zhuangzi, except some descriptions of its nothingness, emptiness, infiniteness, and doing nothing: “The Dao has no boundaries” (Zhuangzi 2: 55); “The great Dao cannot be named” (Zhuangzi 2: 59); “It has no action or forms” (Zhuangzi 6: 29). As Brindley has also correctly observed, Dao is not a concrete, bounded entity; it is unbounded nothingness (Brindley 2010: 58). Therefore, individuals’ conforming to Dao or being together with Dao amounts to being in a realm of the boundless and limitless nothingness, or, using Zhuangzi’s words, wandering in a “wu he you zhi xiang 無何有之鄉” or “the country of nothingness” (Zhuangzi 1: 46; 7: 9–10; 32: 21). In this “country of nothingness,” everything moves and changes spontaneously along with the cosmos, which is Dao. Therefore, conforming to Dao does not mean conforming to an outside authority; it means to let the individual mind wander in an infinite realm and become what CHEN Guying has emphasized, the “open mind” (Chen 2009). Individuals in this realm are totally free and open, much freer than when bound with each other by common moralities or social contracts. It is just like the fish that, having once run aground, helped each other with their saliva and slime to survive; but it would be much better to let them return to their mutually disinterested original situation: “forget with each other in the rivers and lakes” (Zhuangzi 6: 22–23). It is because it conforms to Dao rather than to God or any other religious divinity that Zhuangzian individualism is not likely to be carried to the extreme and become absolutely egocentric and intolerant to others, like the Calvinists have demonstrated (Lukes 1973: 84), since conforming to Dao only means unlimited freedom and unbounded openness to the spontaneousness of every individual and unique thing.
Furthermore, since there is no need for a persistent or stubborn attitude toward anything when the individual spirit is conforming to the free, open, and dynamic Dao, one will also keep an open, free, and flexible attitude toward one’s own “completed mind” (chen xin 成心) or already constructed “self.” This is what happened in the process of “fasting of the mind” and “sitting and forgetting,” in two episodes in Chapters 4 and 6, when YAN Hui, Confucius’s favorite disciple, practiced a kind of self meditation under the instruction of his Master and finally reached the advanced stage of forgetting his body and mind (Zhuangzi 4: 24–34; 6: 89–93). Nevertheless, the so called “forgetting one’s self”—for instance, at the beginning of Chapter 2, when NANGUO Ziqi says to YANCHENG Ziyou: “Now I have lost myself” (Zhuangzi 2: 3)—does not mean that the individual “self” has totally dissolved or disappeared, physically or mentally. Just as some scholars have correctly analyzed (Chen 2001; Yang 2005), there are two different “selves” in the sentence “Now I have lost myself.” The first is the original and innate self, which is as free, open, and spontaneous as the Dao itself; the other is the socially constructed self, which is fixed, closed, and constrained by his or her worldly existence. What should be forgotten and lost is the latter, not the former. Otherwise, we would not be able to understand why in other places Zhuangzi mocks and denounces those worldly people for “having lost their selves in materials” (Zhuangzi 16: 21), and “conducting for fame but having lost self” (Zhuangzi 6: 12). In general, when Zhuangzi urges an individual to conform to Dao, he actually has released the individual mind into a boundless free realm, where it will no longer be constrained by even its own socially constructed “self,” let alone any other political, social, and cultural control and restrictions.
Third, Zhuangzi’s individualism is a kind of “inward individualism” rather than “outward individualism.” By “inward individualism,” I mean that Zhuangzi advocates and pursues individuality by exploring the innate and intrinsic self of individuals, rather than claiming and expanding outside interests and rights for individuals. This feature is partly due to the autarkical small-scale farming economy of his time, as I have mentioned previously, and it also makes the Zhuangzian individualism different from the economic and social-political individualism in modern Western culture, which makes great effort to draw a clear boundary of individuals’ ownership, encourages individuals to actively assert, pursue, and protect the interests and benefits supposed to belong to them from outside, and aggressively compete for individual success and achievement in social reality. Zhuangzi, in contrast, cares much more about an individual’s own body and spiritual freedom, rather than the individual’s material interests, economic benefits, and political rights in the outside social reality. As Judith Berling has pointed out, Zhuangzi’s “position is call not for the rights of the individual, but for a shift of attention from social and political issues to another dimension of life” (Berling 1985: 101).
In terms of economy, Zhuangzi’s individualism advocates a care-less attitude toward any material gains and profits. This is contrary to some Western economic individualists, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, who emphasize individual ownership of property and material goods. Zhuangzi thinks that in order to preserve and nourish real individual life, one should neglect material interests, as he states in Chapter 28: “he who nourishes his bodily form forgets about gain of interests” (Zhuangzi 28: 51); and “he who regards life as important will look upon material interests as insignificant” (Zhuangzi 28: 56–57). He thinks that only when you are indifferent to those outside gains and profits will you be able to preserve your true independence, as all those material goods and outside benefits are just burdens for spiritual freedom. One should not use oneself as a tool in order to gain those things. This also makes Zhuangzi’s individualism different from that of utilitarianism, represented by Western philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who take a calculating attitude toward gain and loss of interests and benefits.
In politics, in contrast to the modern Western individualism in the context of political democracy, which emphasizes the individual’s participation in politics and engagement in public affairs, Zhuangzi thinks that individuals should detach themselves from political institutions and public affairs. Many of his stories dissuade people from involvement in politics. Zhuangzi himself, as well as many other Daoist masters, is only interested in the issue of how to manage his own body (zhi shen 治身) and pursue longevity of individual life, rather than the issue of how to manage the state (zhi guo 治國) and society. As recorded in Chapter 11, when the Yellow Emperor came to consult Master Guang Cheng about the Way of governing the world, Master Guang Cheng was not interested and did not teach him anything. But after the Yellow Emperor gave up his throne and came back again to consult him about the “Way of governing body,” Master Guang Cheng sat up with a start and talked with him about how to protect the individual spirit and body and enjoy long life, with the essential of “being cautious of what is within you; blocking off what is outside you” (Zhuangzi 11: 28–44). Obviously, Master GUANG Cheng’s way of governing the body is to cut off as much as possible the links between the self and society, withdrawing to one’s own self consciousness. Most of the men Zhuangzi admired were those who “lofty in principle and meticulous in conduct, delighting in their own will alone without serving in public affairs” (Zhuangzi 28: 86–87). They considered their own body much “heavier” than the state and society, and did not want to consent to the existing political authority or take political responsibility or social obligation.
As a result, Zhuangzian individualism does not encourage social-economic contention or competition. This is quite different from certain versions of modern Western individualism, which take social Darwinism as their proposition, based on the belief that if everyone contends in pursuing gain and interests for themselves, the well-being of a society will improve in general, thus justifying ruthless rivalry among individuals in business and politics (Lukes 1973: 39). Here also lies a fundamental difference between Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, despite their similarities in other aspects. Nietzsche’s “will to power” theory encourages individuals to contend and even justifies the stronger conquering the weaker. His individualism is quite outwardly expanding and aggressive, while in a general Daoist view, fighting, rivalry, and contention are all of negative significance. From the angle of state politics, the Daoist doctrine of “wu wei 無為” (doing-nothing, inactivity) means no intervention and letting people take their own course, which has a similar connotation to “laissez-faire.” But from the angle of individual personality, “wu wei” also means “bu zheng 不爭” (no rivalry, no contention), a personal merit of no contending, no rivalry with others. There is no incentive element in Zhuangzi’s thought to encourage individuals to contend for outside success and achievement. His individualism is defensive rather than aggressive, inward rather than outward. Therefore, it should be exempt from the common socialist criticism of certain Western individualism, “as arming one human being against another, making the good of each depend upon evil to others, making all who have anything to gain or lose, live in the midst of enemies” (Mill 1967: 444).
5 Conclusion
We have found some values in the Zhuangzi, which can be reasonably regarded as belonging to individualism. It is Daoist individualism. The unique Daoist individualism represented in the Zhuangzi has a profound and deep influence on the later development of Chinese culture. However, due to its special characteristics discussed above, it has not become a fundamental resource for thinking about social, political, or economic revolution, as some versions of modern Western individualism functioned in the West. Nor has it played any role in constructing social, political, and economic institutions based on civil rights and interests and the contracts among individuals or between individuals and institutions.
Nevertheless, Zhuangzian individualism does provide an ideological resource for those who want to take a disobedient attitude toward political authorities, criticize autocracy and absolutism, keep their own mind in a free realm, and protect their independent personality. This is especially obvious in the thoughts and behaviors of some literati and intellectuals. Almost all the extraordinary, unusual, and eccentric figures in the history of Chinese literature and culture, such as TAO Yuanming, JI Kan, RUAN Ji, LI Po, SU Dongpo, and GONG Zizhen, among many others, are influenced by Zhuangzi and his thought. They find a cultural and spiritual space in Zhuangzian individualism, where they can reside with their unique personality and develop their individuality freely.
At the same time, due to its “inward” feature and emphasis only on spiritual individuality, Zhuangzian individualism does not cause any major collision with Confucianism, despite its disagreement with Confucianism in many aspects. It provides an alternative value choice for those who want to temporarily or permanently withdraw from the engagement required by common cultural custom or established social standards, thus to protect their individuality. Therefore, it has been an important and indispensable complement of the mainstream cultural tradition represented by Confucianism, which comparatively put more emphasis on the collectivity of family, group, state, and nation, and the value of the social order and political authority.
Furthermore, Zhuangzian individualism also provides an alternative angle for us to understand human beings as individuals different from the Western metaphysical perspective: individual persons are not like fixed, interchangeable, and forever “indivisible” physical “atoms,” individuals exists only temporarily in times, and one individual is not interchangeable with other individuals, because they are all different and unique; but it is changeable during the time of his or her existence, because the ultimate Dao is just the spontaneous change of everything. It is just this changeability that makes an individual really a free human being.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and revision suggestions on an earlier version of this paper
From: A Different Type of Individualism in Zhuangzi by XU Keqian 徐克謙

As discussed previously, in Zhuangzi we can find some core values of individualism, and it is not inappropriate to call it Zhuangzian individualism. However, just like all varieties of “individualism” which appear in different times and places, each with its own connotations and characteristics, due to its particular social-cultural and philosophical background as mentioned above, the Zhuangzian individualism also has its own special characteristics, which make it a unique pattern of individualism and distinguishable from some of its Western counterparts.
First, Zhuangzi does not understand “individual” in a Western metaphysical way; in other words, he does not think “individual” as an abstract and permanent “Being,” like an individual “atom.” This makes it different from atomistic or abstract individualism, such as that of Thomas Hobbes. According to Chad Hansen, individuals in the Western conceptual structure are “fixed, interchangeable units” (Hansen 1985: 36). However, for Zhuangzi, individuals are neither “fixed” nor “interchangeable.” Zhuangzi has a dynamic view on individuals. Individuals do exist, but they may change their features and property during their time of existing, so an individual human being is not something similar to a “fixed” atom, nor a constant “matter-in-motion.” In Chapters 25 and 27 of the Zhuangzi, two paragraphs describe QU Boyu and Confucius respectively: as “growing up to his sixty years old, he has changed sixty times. There was nothing what he called right in the beginning had not been rejected as wrong by himself in the end. We do not know whether what he called right today was just what he considered as wrong when he was 59 years old” (Zhuangzi 25: 51–52; 27: 10–11). So QU Boyu and Confucius, as individuals, change during their lives in both body and mind; they are dynamic and living beings, rather than “fixed” atoms.
While individuals are changeable, they are not interchangeable, because every individual is unique and different. In his discussion of the ethics of difference in the Zhuangzi, HUANG Yong has keenly perceived that Zhuangzi “pays attention to the differences among human beings in terms of their ideas and ideals, desires and preferences, and habits and customs, etc” (Huang 2010a: 71), and “The central idea of Zhuangzi’s ethics of difference is to respect the unique natural tendencies of different things” (Huang 2010b: 131062). A resumption of this kind of ethics of difference is that every individual is unique and different. Therefore, human individuals are not “fixed unites” that are “interchangeable” in a social mechanism. They may not function in the same way and play the same role under the same situation, as indicated in Zhuangzi’s allegories:
[A big house beam may be used to breach a city wall, but it cannot be used to plug a small hole, which is to say the implements are different. A swift horse may gallop thousand miles a day, but for catching rats it is not as good as a weasel, which is to say their skills are different. An owl can catch fleas and discern the tip of a hair at night, but in the daytime with its eyes open it can’t even see the mountains, which is to say that natures are different. (Zhuangzi, 17:35–37)]
Therefore, no unified principles or norms can be applied to all of them without discrimination, as indicated in Zhuangzi: “Although the legs of a duck are too short, if we try to extend them the duck will be scared and worry. Although the legs of a crane are too long, if we try to cut them short the crane will be in horror and sadness” (Zhuangzi 8:9–10). These allegories in the Zhuangzi, as HUANG Yong pointed out, metaphorically tell us how human beings should act with each other (Huang 2010b: 1057) and be aware of the different needs, desires, and preferences of individuals. Actually, if individuals are treated as only interchangeable atoms, or just as “matter-in-motion,” it will unavoidably lead to certain general assertions on them, as well as some common principles or norms to regulate them. In terms of social politics, that will be social laws, regulations, and moral standards. This is a trend that Zhuangzi opposes. In other words, in the Zhuangzi, individuals are treated more particularly and respectively than in other theories of individualism in which individuals are understood as fixed, abstract, and interchangeable “atoms.”
Second, Zhuangzi thinks that the only thing that an individual mind or the “self” has to conform to is the unlimited and indefinable Dao. This actually has the significance of releasing the individual mind into a totally free and unconstrained realm of nothingness or emptiness, thus endorsing an infinite openness to any possible development of all individuals. Erica Brindley points out that Zhuangzi advocates conformism to the Dao: “individual relationship to the Dao is characterized not by dependence on political institutions or the central figure of the sovereign, but by direct, individual access to it through one’s own person” (Brindley 2010: 55). At first look, this is quite similar to Western religious individualism, which claims that the individual’s relation to God is direct and unmediated, and an individual builds his or her own relationship with God by self-scrutiny without any intermediaries such as a church or a sect. However, Dao is not the God. The essence of Dao is only everything’s “zi ran” or spontaneousness. The spontaneity of everything works automatically and perfectly, which is Dao. Dao does not have any will or intention, as God does. There is no clear definition of Dao in the Zhuangzi, except some descriptions of its nothingness, emptiness, infiniteness, and doing nothing: “The Dao has no boundaries” (Zhuangzi 2: 55); “The great Dao cannot be named” (Zhuangzi 2: 59); “It has no action or forms” (Zhuangzi 6: 29). As Brindley has also correctly observed, Dao is not a concrete, bounded entity; it is unbounded nothingness (Brindley 2010: 58). Therefore, individuals’ conforming to Dao or being together with Dao amounts to being in a realm of the boundless and limitless nothingness, or, using Zhuangzi’s words, wandering in a “wu he you zhi xiang 無何有之鄉” or “the country of nothingness” (Zhuangzi 1: 46; 7: 9–10; 32: 21). In this “country of nothingness,” everything moves and changes spontaneously along with the cosmos, which is Dao. Therefore, conforming to Dao does not mean conforming to an outside authority; it means to let the individual mind wander in an infinite realm and become what CHEN Guying has emphasized, the “open mind” (Chen 2009). Individuals in this realm are totally free and open, much freer than when bound with each other by common moralities or social contracts. It is just like the fish that, having once run aground, helped each other with their saliva and slime to survive; but it would be much better to let them return to their mutually disinterested original situation: “forget with each other in the rivers and lakes” (Zhuangzi 6: 22–23). It is because it conforms to Dao rather than to God or any other religious divinity that Zhuangzian individualism is not likely to be carried to the extreme and become absolutely egocentric and intolerant to others, like the Calvinists have demonstrated (Lukes 1973: 84), since conforming to Dao only means unlimited freedom and unbounded openness to the spontaneousness of every individual and unique thing.
Furthermore, since there is no need for a persistent or stubborn attitude toward anything when the individual spirit is conforming to the free, open, and dynamic Dao, one will also keep an open, free, and flexible attitude toward one’s own “completed mind” (chen xin 成心) or already constructed “self.” This is what happened in the process of “fasting of the mind” and “sitting and forgetting,” in two episodes in Chapters 4 and 6, when YAN Hui, Confucius’s favorite disciple, practiced a kind of self meditation under the instruction of his Master and finally reached the advanced stage of forgetting his body and mind (Zhuangzi 4: 24–34; 6: 89–93). Nevertheless, the so called “forgetting one’s self”—for instance, at the beginning of Chapter 2, when NANGUO Ziqi says to YANCHENG Ziyou: “Now I have lost myself” (Zhuangzi 2: 3)—does not mean that the individual “self” has totally dissolved or disappeared, physically or mentally. Just as some scholars have correctly analyzed (Chen 2001; Yang 2005), there are two different “selves” in the sentence “Now I have lost myself.” The first is the original and innate self, which is as free, open, and spontaneous as the Dao itself; the other is the socially constructed self, which is fixed, closed, and constrained by his or her worldly existence. What should be forgotten and lost is the latter, not the former. Otherwise, we would not be able to understand why in other places Zhuangzi mocks and denounces those worldly people for “having lost their selves in materials” (Zhuangzi 16: 21), and “conducting for fame but having lost self” (Zhuangzi 6: 12). In general, when Zhuangzi urges an individual to conform to Dao, he actually has released the individual mind into a boundless free realm, where it will no longer be constrained by even its own socially constructed “self,” let alone any other political, social, and cultural control and restrictions.
Third, Zhuangzi’s individualism is a kind of “inward individualism” rather than “outward individualism.” By “inward individualism,” I mean that Zhuangzi advocates and pursues individuality by exploring the innate and intrinsic self of individuals, rather than claiming and expanding outside interests and rights for individuals. This feature is partly due to the autarkical small-scale farming economy of his time, as I have mentioned previously, and it also makes the Zhuangzian individualism different from the economic and social-political individualism in modern Western culture, which makes great effort to draw a clear boundary of individuals’ ownership, encourages individuals to actively assert, pursue, and protect the interests and benefits supposed to belong to them from outside, and aggressively compete for individual success and achievement in social reality. Zhuangzi, in contrast, cares much more about an individual’s own body and spiritual freedom, rather than the individual’s material interests, economic benefits, and political rights in the outside social reality. As Judith Berling has pointed out, Zhuangzi’s “position is call not for the rights of the individual, but for a shift of attention from social and political issues to another dimension of life” (Berling 1985: 101).
In terms of economy, Zhuangzi’s individualism advocates a care-less attitude toward any material gains and profits. This is contrary to some Western economic individualists, such as John Locke and Adam Smith, who emphasize individual ownership of property and material goods. Zhuangzi thinks that in order to preserve and nourish real individual life, one should neglect material interests, as he states in Chapter 28: “he who nourishes his bodily form forgets about gain of interests” (Zhuangzi 28: 51); and “he who regards life as important will look upon material interests as insignificant” (Zhuangzi 28: 56–57). He thinks that only when you are indifferent to those outside gains and profits will you be able to preserve your true independence, as all those material goods and outside benefits are just burdens for spiritual freedom. One should not use oneself as a tool in order to gain those things. This also makes Zhuangzi’s individualism different from that of utilitarianism, represented by Western philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, who take a calculating attitude toward gain and loss of interests and benefits.
In politics, in contrast to the modern Western individualism in the context of political democracy, which emphasizes the individual’s participation in politics and engagement in public affairs, Zhuangzi thinks that individuals should detach themselves from political institutions and public affairs. Many of his stories dissuade people from involvement in politics. Zhuangzi himself, as well as many other Daoist masters, is only interested in the issue of how to manage his own body (zhi shen 治身) and pursue longevity of individual life, rather than the issue of how to manage the state (zhi guo 治國) and society. As recorded in Chapter 11, when the Yellow Emperor came to consult Master Guang Cheng about the Way of governing the world, Master Guang Cheng was not interested and did not teach him anything. But after the Yellow Emperor gave up his throne and came back again to consult him about the “Way of governing body,” Master Guang Cheng sat up with a start and talked with him about how to protect the individual spirit and body and enjoy long life, with the essential of “being cautious of what is within you; blocking off what is outside you” (Zhuangzi 11: 28–44). Obviously, Master GUANG Cheng’s way of governing the body is to cut off as much as possible the links between the self and society, withdrawing to one’s own self consciousness. Most of the men Zhuangzi admired were those who “lofty in principle and meticulous in conduct, delighting in their own will alone without serving in public affairs” (Zhuangzi 28: 86–87). They considered their own body much “heavier” than the state and society, and did not want to consent to the existing political authority or take political responsibility or social obligation.
As a result, Zhuangzian individualism does not encourage social-economic contention or competition. This is quite different from certain versions of modern Western individualism, which take social Darwinism as their proposition, based on the belief that if everyone contends in pursuing gain and interests for themselves, the well-being of a society will improve in general, thus justifying ruthless rivalry among individuals in business and politics (Lukes 1973: 39). Here also lies a fundamental difference between Zhuangzi and Nietzsche, despite their similarities in other aspects. Nietzsche’s “will to power” theory encourages individuals to contend and even justifies the stronger conquering the weaker. His individualism is quite outwardly expanding and aggressive, while in a general Daoist view, fighting, rivalry, and contention are all of negative significance. From the angle of state politics, the Daoist doctrine of “wu wei 無為” (doing-nothing, inactivity) means no intervention and letting people take their own course, which has a similar connotation to “laissez-faire.” But from the angle of individual personality, “wu wei” also means “bu zheng 不爭” (no rivalry, no contention), a personal merit of no contending, no rivalry with others. There is no incentive element in Zhuangzi’s thought to encourage individuals to contend for outside success and achievement. His individualism is defensive rather than aggressive, inward rather than outward. Therefore, it should be exempt from the common socialist criticism of certain Western individualism, “as arming one human being against another, making the good of each depend upon evil to others, making all who have anything to gain or lose, live in the midst of enemies” (Mill 1967: 444).
5 Conclusion
We have found some values in the Zhuangzi, which can be reasonably regarded as belonging to individualism. It is Daoist individualism. The unique Daoist individualism represented in the Zhuangzi has a profound and deep influence on the later development of Chinese culture. However, due to its special characteristics discussed above, it has not become a fundamental resource for thinking about social, political, or economic revolution, as some versions of modern Western individualism functioned in the West. Nor has it played any role in constructing social, political, and economic institutions based on civil rights and interests and the contracts among individuals or between individuals and institutions.
Nevertheless, Zhuangzian individualism does provide an ideological resource for those who want to take a disobedient attitude toward political authorities, criticize autocracy and absolutism, keep their own mind in a free realm, and protect their independent personality. This is especially obvious in the thoughts and behaviors of some literati and intellectuals. Almost all the extraordinary, unusual, and eccentric figures in the history of Chinese literature and culture, such as TAO Yuanming, JI Kan, RUAN Ji, LI Po, SU Dongpo, and GONG Zizhen, among many others, are influenced by Zhuangzi and his thought. They find a cultural and spiritual space in Zhuangzian individualism, where they can reside with their unique personality and develop their individuality freely.
At the same time, due to its “inward” feature and emphasis only on spiritual individuality, Zhuangzian individualism does not cause any major collision with Confucianism, despite its disagreement with Confucianism in many aspects. It provides an alternative value choice for those who want to temporarily or permanently withdraw from the engagement required by common cultural custom or established social standards, thus to protect their individuality. Therefore, it has been an important and indispensable complement of the mainstream cultural tradition represented by Confucianism, which comparatively put more emphasis on the collectivity of family, group, state, and nation, and the value of the social order and political authority.
Furthermore, Zhuangzian individualism also provides an alternative angle for us to understand human beings as individuals different from the Western metaphysical perspective: individual persons are not like fixed, interchangeable, and forever “indivisible” physical “atoms,” individuals exists only temporarily in times, and one individual is not interchangeable with other individuals, because they are all different and unique; but it is changeable during the time of his or her existence, because the ultimate Dao is just the spontaneous change of everything. It is just this changeability that makes an individual really a free human being.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to thank two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and revision suggestions on an earlier version of this paper
From: A Different Type of Individualism in Zhuangzi by XU Keqian 徐克謙

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I see a lot of people talking about how the commercial RE bubble is middle managers getting pissy about their little fiefdoms getting messed up, but there's a reason basically everyone in the upper class is unified against WFH: city tax bases are where a colossal amount of money is extracted from cities and used to subsidize suburbs and corruption.
Let's take a pretty basic example, and one of many reasons the mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, is reigning against WFH: you are a police officer.
As New York's Finest, you are paid a salary and take it into, I dunno, Ronkonkoma NY. That's where you live. Your city salary is supporting the infrastructure and businesses of Ronkonkoma through money paid by NYC. This affects EVERY city salary. Teachers. Administrators. You name it. Every place surrounding cities that receives salaries from the cities is suddenly going to have a downwind in local spending as layoffs are forced to happen. This is going to cause massive discretionary cuts in every. single. metro. area. If the city budget goes down, a massive swath of public sector salaries do too, and one of the largest contributors to these budgets is commercial real estate.
But this is the part that I think is really unifying a lot of people hanging around the upper crust: public funding for corrupt deals. If commercial real estate/retail crashes and the tax revenue goes along with it, then if you're say, a city politician who's cutting a deal with a developer or a friend starting a new business or doing some low-key quid-pro-quo to line your own pocket for a job down the road: that money is dwindling. You cannot misappropriate city money in creative ways to help your career and pay your pals that got you into office back. If you're someone who knows a person who knows a person, you no longer can get 2 million dollars for inventing a new kind of Traffic Cone that the city adopts. This money is the blood of how politicians and businesses work together. Commercial real estate is their chips at the table.
Property tax is 31% of NYCs operating income. Not all of that is commercial, but another 13% is entirely driven by retail.
Basically with the cratering of commercial real estates, budgets are going to rapidly decrease for EVERYONE and EVERYWHERE because every local government is massively funded by commercial real estate. The cronies will probably get paid while your aging city worker will likely get laid off.
There will be a massive austerity wave, and the working person will be the one taking the hit, because god forbid a rich person loses access to public funds.

Hello, noobie here hoping to get some help with tax related questions. I was considering a bid on a property that was listed very recently. Upon further research however using propstream, I noticed that last year was listed as a delinquent tax year for the property. This raises some suspicions and upon trying to reach out to have some questions answered, the seller's party weren't very helpful and pretty much pushed it back on me to do my due diligence on this. They also pretty much said an offer needs to be placed by Sunday as to honor the current showings they have for the property. I can't seem to find anything related to this delinquent tax with doing some internet public record/tax research. The house is not in foreclosure or currently has a tax lien on it for additional reference.
My concerns/questions were the following...
1) Would I be taking a big risk in regard to bidding on this property?
2) If there are taxes owed would the seller be required to pay these before they could list the property for sale or would the buyer now be required to pay what's owed on the property? Again...the house isn't in foreclosure or is at the point of having a tax lien on it so I am not sure how that exactly would work if I'm being honest.
3) Following up with question 2 depending on the answer could this just become more of just a negotiation with the seller? Like to be more specific if one were to purchase/bid on it that they would have to pay all owed taxes or the deal is off? Hopefully these questions make sense. I will follow up with any additional information that may be needed here to help answer the questions.

Today thanks to a tip from Faraday_Rage, I bring you a ghost story from West Lake Hills, although saying that might be a bit misleading because West Lake Hills is a mid-20th century invention and the events of this story happen mostly before that. There used to be a village called Eanes in that general area full of farmers, ranchers, and cedar choppers before it was subdivided into one of the nicer suburbs.
There was only one bridge for vehicle traffic (besides the train bridge) from Downtown into South Austin before the 1940s. Because of this, the western part of Travis County was separated from the growth of Austin and the eastern part of the county, and remained sort of a wild frontier well after the surrounding lands were settled.
Among the early settlers in that area were two brothers named Alexander and Robert Eanes. There is a historical marker at the intersection of Red Bud Trail and Loop 360 which says the following:

Alexander Eanes (1806-1888) moved to Texas from Mississippi in 1845 and acquired this ranch by 1857. In 1873 he sold the property to his brother, Robert Eanes (1805-1895), who had moved to the area following the Civil War. A log cabin built on the Eanes ranch was the first Eanes school, and the community also assumed the Eanes name. Robert Eanes sold the ranch to his son-in-law, Hudson Boatner Marshall (1862-1951) in 1883. Marshall dismantled the ranch house and moved it to a site adjacent to the nearby creek.

So there was a man named H.B. Marshall who lived on the former Eanes Ranch with his wife Viola (Robert Eanes's daughter) and family.
H.B. Marshall was a Civil War orphan. His mom died shortly after childbirth and his dad died as part of Hood's Brigade. He spent his early life in Austin-area orphanages until he graduated high school at the age of 19. That was when the doctors of the era diagnosed him with "consumption", otherwise known as Tuberculosis today. There was no cure in the 19th century. Afflicted people were told to go live in the country and get some fresh air, and that's exactly what he did.
Lucky for him, HB's dad well fairly well off when he died and left him an inheritance. After he left the orphanage he used this money to buy the ranch from the Eanes family, met and married Viola Eanes, and started a family. Legends say a Mexican folk healer convinced him eating goat meat and drinking goat's milk was an excellent remedy for consumption, and so he raised goats.
The book Eanes Portrait of a Community has this photo of H.B. and Viola and their dog, along a brief biographical bit:

H.B. and Viola Marshall sold honey and butter and raised goats. At one time H.B. was president of the American Goat Association and traveled to Chicago to attend that organization's national convention. There he met and talked with Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. In its early days the Ford Motor Company used mohair from goats to make a soft, long-lasting fabric which was used to upholster the seats in its "tin lizzies". H.B. Marshall was one of the company's first mohair suppliers. Later, after Bee Cave Road became a better, more reliable road, Marshall, who was a skilled printer sometimes worked in Austin at that trade.

So HB Marshall and his family were very good at raising goats.
The Marshall Family were also beekeepers. HB liked to be called "Honey Bee" Marshall later in life. He lived the rest of his life on that ranch and died in the 1950s.
Now that you have that little bit of backstory, on with today's tale. The following article appeared on page 21 the Austin American-Statesman on May 16, 1966:

MYSTERY
Old Grave Beside Creek
The mystery of who is buried a shallow grave beside Smith Creek, seven miles southwest of Austin, may never be solved.
With it goes a tale of a robbery and killing said to have occurred more than 60 years ago on the Bee Cave Road.
But at least one story told by a man who died last year sticks in the minds of some residents of the hill country behind Zilker Park.
The man was long-time stock man and World War I veteran John Marshall, who lived out his life on the Eanes-Marshall Ranch seven miles southwest of Austin. His story told him as a child by his father, early Travis County settler and school teacher Hudson Boatner (Honey Bee) Marshall goes something like this:
In the late 19th century, a man from Bee Caves came to Austin with a wagon load of cotton. After selling it, he was returning home when his hired hand killed him and took the money. The slain man was not found for several days, and when he was, he was buried on the spot, several hundred feel off the road.
This is the way Cecil Johnson, of 1500 West Bee Caves remembers the story. He heard it in 1956 when he and his brother-in-law, Elmo Freitag, dug into the grave and found a skeleton. Freitag and Johnson went from where they live to buy a dog killed by a car on the Marshall ranch, Johnson said. "When we found the bones, we were pretty scared," Freitag said. "We went up to the ranch house to tell John Marshall about them." "That's when John told us the story," Johnson recalls. "He said we should cover the bones back up and let the old man rest."
The story was brought to the attention of the American- Statesman by Bruce Marshall of Houston, a nephew of John Marshall and an heir to 10 acres of the old ranch land. Others who lived along Bee Caves Road, or who knew John Marshall, recall hearing him tell the story, but no one contacted so far remembers hearing the story from anyone else.
Sheriff T. O. Lang said he has no records dating back that far, Marshall was born around 1887, and Johnson said the killing and robbery occurred "before John's time."
A check into the archives in the Austin Library's Austin and Travis County Collection reveals a similar crime which occurred in 1871. On Feb. 7 of that year, according to Frank Brown's Annals of Travis County, "an old citizen" named Charles Barnes, who "lived seven miles north of Austin," was killed and robbed after he had come to town and sold a wagon load of hay. He was shot and killed "probably for his money," and his body was found 30 yards from the road, three-fourths of a mile from his dwelling. A $1,000 reward was offered for the criminal, but he was never captured.
This "official" report is quite similar to the story told by John Marshall, but the directions from Austin do not coincide.
There are descendants or a family named Cotton who live in Bee Caves, according to Miss Jessie Roy, former teacher who lives on the Rob Roy Ranch on the Bee Caves Road two miles beyond the Marshall ranch. But she said she never heard of any of them being robbed or killed. Her family moved here in the 1890s.
Conceivably, with the tale handed down by word of mouth for three generations, the name Cotton, and the product "cotton" could have gotten confused. And the Brown report, probably taken from a newspaper account, could have been mistaken about the direction (north or west) from Austin where the crime was committed.
But if the wagon load was cotton instead of hay, the crime would have occurred most likely in October, according to Austin rancher and historian Carl Widen. Widen said in the old days Austin, it usually came from the south and west, from Dripping Springs and Bee Caves, in October, "in time for the circus." "The whole family would come to town with the load of cotton usually one or two bales to a wagon and after it was sold the women bought cloth for dresses and the kids went to see the circus. Then they got back home late that night.
Another hill resident, Charles Roberts, 80, who lives on a creek near the Rob Roy ranch, said he remembered people hauling cotton in trains of three or four wagons pulled by oxen, rather than by horses or mules. And Austin resident Charles Dellana said it used to take at least four mules to pull a wagon load of corn out of the bottoms or "The Narrows" between Bee Caves Road and the Colorado River. He opined that the murder and robbery must have occurred "earlier than 1903."
Besides the Cotton family out Bee Caves way, other family names familiar to those still living are Theodore Bose, Joe Beck, the Freitags, the Teagues, the Simpsons and the Moores. But who is buried beside Smith Creek on the Marshall ranch, how he died, and when he was buried, no one seems to remember.

Well this old story was apparently told far and wide. There was another article on that same day (May 16, 1966) in The Statesman: (h/t/ jbjjbjbb)

Ghost Hunters Have a Go at Ghosting
San Antonians Learn of Murder and Such Things on Austin Ranch
Ghosts, anyone? A strange tale of murder and theft was spottily told Saturday night by a "spirit" who was supposedly in communication with a group of ghost- hunters seven miles southwest of Austin. The ghost hunters, five people from San Antonio, gath ered on the old Marshall Ranch in West Lake Hills with two news reporters. They apparently believed they were communicating with a ghost named Tom Burns.
"Margaret, Margaret, Margaret," the ghost kept repeating through the automatic-writing technique of Mrs. Joan McKee, wife of Don McKee. McKee is manager of the Builders Exchange of Texas, in San Antonio. He and his wife say they are "student" parapsychologists. Spelling out the name of Margaret Owens, Tom Burns said, "She is dead now. She is my love."
The names of Margaret Owens and Tom Burns were interpreted by the McKees from an almost indecipherable scrawl which Mrs. McKee transmitted to sheet after sheet of paper with a pencil, while her husband held her elbow. They were seated at a table in the single upper room of the old Marshall ranch house. With them were this reporter, ranch owner and Houston Post business writer Bruce Marshall, and San Antonio residents Mr. and Mrs. Frank Gibson, Mr. and Mrs. John Mac-Donald, and Mrs. Mary K. Cook. The only light in the room came from a lantern.
"Burns" said Margaret "Owens" was buried on a mountain top east of the ranch, and had been killed in or near some water. Burns also said he had been killed by three men on a road near the ranch as he was hauling a wagon load of hay. Placing the date at 1904, possibly on a Monday, he said he was shot as he got down off the wagon to move a rock that was in the way.
Although at least two other spirits were supposedly contacted beyond the pale, that of Burns appeared to be the most communicative and the most interesting. It was either Burns, or a ghost named Nathan Anderson who spoke of a John Anderson who came "often" to the ranch to drink "rum from South America" with Robert Eanes.
Eanes, according to Marshall, was the first man in the family to own the ranch property. He died in the 19th century and is buried in a family plot on a hill near the ranch house. Marshall said later there had been a man named John Anderson who was a friend of the Eanes family. Marshall and this reporter have established, from local folklore and from written records, that a man, possibly named Charles Barnes, was killed seven miles from Austin around 1871, after selling a load of ether cotton or hay in town.
There is a grave of an unknown man beside Smith Creek on the Marshal ranch, not far off the Bee Caves Road, which is seven miles from Austin. Neither Marshall nor this reporter have verified that the grave on Smith Creek is the one in which the robbery victim was buried, but the coincidences of the known facts leaves room for speculation that it may be the one.
Burns said he had worked for a man named Cotton Roberts, and that Roberts had worked for a man possibly named Mitchell Treadwell. The name of Treadwell first came to the attention of the group when MacDonald, a former announcer for KONO-TV, fell into a trance through what was called auto-hypnosis. He said he got the name from a ghost present in the room, and that he also received "an impression" of the dates 1890 to 1901. Marshall later disclosed that the old ranch house had been built sometime between 1890 and 1905.
The name "Mitchell" was written on the paper when one of the persons asked aloud, "Does the name Treadwell mean anything to you?" Burns also spoke of his mother, naming her variously Mary Markham, Marstur, Masters and Markem, who he said had been sick in a barn and subsequently died.
Mention was made of a bearded man who wore a big hat and was deaf in one ear, of a box buried beneath a barn, and of wild mohair goats. Marshall said the last man to live on the ranch, his late uncle John Marshall, found a hole on the ranch about 30 years ago where a box apparently had been buried. This was when Miriam A. Ferguson was governor of Texas, he said.
He also said a bearded deaf man had once been a ranch hand there and that John Marshall's father, H. B. Marshall, had raised Angora goats on the ranch. Burns said Roberts had buried the box, and he (Burns) had dug it up. "Money means death," came the scrawled message on the paper.
Two of the most dramatic events of the evening occurred when the McKees tried to communicate with a ghost named "Robert" Both of them believed the ghost to be that of Robert Eanes, whom they described as having a very powerful, domineering personality. Mrs. McKee broke down and could write no more after transcribing the words, "My time is up now. Many have come but nobody will listen." Later McKee tried to communicate, and apparently went into a trance after receiving the word "yes" to the question of whether "Robert" had been born in July.
Just before McKee went into a trance, Marshall and this reporter were curious to notice that a strong wind the only one noticed during the entire night rattled the eaves of the house for about a minute.
The time was shortly after midnight Mrs. Cook, who writes radio and TV commercials, took down the following from McKee's barely audible words: "I have many children. I am as Abraham I shan't stay around where my people don't want me. It is dark. Darkness is in the land. We shall bring light."
Further efforts to communicate with "Robert" failed. After this incident, the "ghosts" seemed to leave the parapsychologists and their fellow delvers into ESP (extra-sensory perception).
A long vigil at the family cemetery until almost dawn proved fruitless. Gibson, sales manager for Pratt and Lambert varnish makers, whose supposedly "haunted" house in San Antonio was the subject of a Houston Post story several months ago, conceded with high good humor that he had seen no ghosts Saturday night "But Robert was around," he affirmed confidently.
Marshall and this reporter scratched their heads, totaling up the number of "unexplainable coincidences" which made the night at least a little provocative if not downright exciting. It would take a patient historian to check the names listed. As for the "ghosts" well, who knows?

H.B. Marshall had a son named John and he in turn had a son named Bruce. Bruce Marshall was an artist who spent most of his time in Houston but moved back to the family ranch in 1974. Marshall recounted the story of the 1966 ghost hunt in this 1983 article:

THE SEARCH FOR ghosts is not uncommon with visitors to the Marshall Ranch off Loop 360 South. It is the home of artist Bruce Marshall and his family and nine ghosts, those of seven people and two horses.
Marshall studio and gallery is a restored, pre-Civil War ancestral home located next to the family residence. Parapsychologists visited the building in 1966 and declared it to be haunted by a man who was attacked, shot and killed near the original entrance of the ranch. The ghost of the dead man, whose unmarked grave is still on the ranch, reportedly told the ghosts hunters about his fate. The ghost also admitted that he had committed murder, killing a woman named Margaret by drowning her.
There are two creeks near the ranchhouse that are the source of several other ghost stories.
"SUPPOSEDLY ONE GHOST walks the creek towards Eanes (Elementary) school calling for someone," said Marshall. "There were some kids camping near the creek about six months ago, they heard dogs barking and the noise of a wagon drawn by horses. The wagon has no driver and follows an old road which used to connect to Bee Cave Road."
Marshall said his family tries to play down the ghosts tales surrounding his homestead. "If we really become convinced that we're haunted, we really lose our enjoyment of the place. People seeking ghosts out here are very unwelcome," he said. "If there are such things, they don't bother me. They like me. They probably feel that if I go, the house goes, the property changes, and they're evicted.

In 1999 Marshall sold the house and the ranch to The Eanes Historical Society, who moved it next to the current location of Eanes Elementary School, where it has become the home of the EHS and serves as a small museum today.
So who is in the mystery grave at Smith Creek? I found one lead.
Back in February of 1916 a 20-year-old man named Albert Cook had an unfortunate accident and was killed. The Statesman reported it like so:

While setting a wolf trap on the Marshall goat ranch, eight miles from Austin, Alfred Lee Cook, 20 years old, accidentally shot and killed himself at 8:30 Friday morning, a charge of buck-shot from the left barrel of a double-barrelled shotgun entering his abdomen.
Cook was a laborer on the Marshall ranch, near Summitt. Early Friday morning he attempted to set a steel trap for wolves. He was carrying a shotgun and was accompanied by two small boys.
Setting his shotgun, both barrels of which were loaded, against a bush, he advanced to the trap. The gun fell across his path and he shoved it aside. As he did so, in some way the left barrel of the gun was discharged, the entire charge taking effect in his abdomen at short range and badly lacerating his body. Death was almost Instantaneous.
Justice of the Peace George W. Mendell, Deputy Sheriff Jim McCoy and Deputy Constable Matt Turner went to Summitt this morning for the Inquest. Justlce Mendell rendered a verdict of accidental shooting. The name of one surviving relative was reported to the Justice of the Peace, being Mrs. Rebecca Ann Brown, mother of the young man

Is this the person in the grave? I can't say for sure without DNA testing, but poor Mr. Cook might be the best candidate.
Time is short and space is long today so I'll leave it there. The Eanes-Marshall house today is called the Eanes History Center, and sits next to Eanes Elementary School at 4101 Bee Caves Rd. Bonus Items to follow:
Bonus Pic #1 - Photograph of Bruce Marshall standing next to the graves of his ancestors in Eanes-Marshall Cemetery - unknown date (mid 1970s?)
Bonus Pic #2 - "Photograph of Bruce Marshall and Dorothy Depwe in the Eanes-Marshall Cemetary looking down at a tombstone." - unknown date (mid 1970s?)
Bonus Video #1 - Eanes History: HB Marshall (from Eanes History Center)
Bonus Video #2 - Eanes History: HB Marshall Ranch House Tour (from Eanes History Center)
Bonus Article #1 - Masons BBQ meet at The Marshall Ranch - November 17, 1919
Bonus Article #2 - "Better watch out! Spirits on the prowl!" - May 14, 1966
Bonus book excerpt? - Notes from an interview with Earl Short (a reformed bootlegger), in which he mentions he saw H.B. and John Marshall setting up a soda stand one Election Day after he bribed some illiterate people for their votes.