Tao Te Ching: Chapter #20

20

Stop thinking, and end your problems.

It's not a suggestion to be a brainless living being, but rather for stopping the habitual, obsessive categorisation of the world. 

What difference between yes and no?

What difference between success and failure?

As in previous chapters, we discover that there is unity under every duality (Chapter 5), so there is no difference at all.

Must you value what others value,

avoid what others avoid?

How ridiculous!

Most of our anxieties are inherited from society, which indoctrinates us about which desires we have to have, and so on, and it has nothing to do, at least to a certain extent, with the values ​​that each person has.

Other people are excited,

as though they were at a parade.

Look at every social network, and people are constantly chasing trends, celebrations, and sensory stimulation.

I alone don't care,

I alone am expressionless,

like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;

I alone possess nothing.

While others accumulate wealth and knowledge, the sage "unlearns" and lets go.

I alone drift about,

like someone without a home.

I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

To have a "home" is to be settled to follow the most beaten path, so to be "homeless" is to be flexible and unattached, moving wherever the Tao flows (Wu Wei). In Taoism, "emptiness" is a state of maximum potential. By being an "idiot" in the eyes of the world, the sage avoids the traps of cleverness and pride, and it's not fixed in any intellectual structure, but he remains open-minded.

Other people are bright;

I alone am dark.

Other people are sharper;

I alone am dull.

Other people have a purpose;

I alone don't know.

I drift like a wave on the ocean,

I blow as aimless as the wind.

While the world celebrates intellectual brilliance and social visibility, the sage deliberately chooses to appear dull, aimless, and "incomplete" in the eyes of society.
The first judges and categorise reality, inevitably creating friction with the natural flow. The sage preserves his wholeness; he remains like the "uncarved block", which, by being nothing in particular, retains the potential to be everything.

I am different from ordinary people.

I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.

While "ordinary people" look outward to society for validation, identity, and sustenance, the sage looks inward and backwards to the origin (The Tao). He accepts the social consequence of this shift: being misunderstood, ignored, or mocked by those who are still caught in the "parade" of worldly life. 

The sage depends only on the Tao like a child is entirely dependent on its mother to survive.

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