quintessential Daoist image is the uncarved block known as pu, a state of pure potential. In its uncarved state, the wood appears useless, and it takes tremendous imagination as well as patience to see what it can become; “When the block is carved, it becomes useful. When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler.”2 Time bridges the two—the temporal aspect of means—after which the advantage emerges but the potential is gone.
