I. Why Can't the Person Who Knows Everything Grow Anyone?

You probably know someone like this —

He knows everything. In any meeting, he can give an instant answer to any question. He can spot the flaw in any proposal at a glance. Whoever is stuck, he can break the deadlock in a sentence.

He really is capable. And yet — the people around him never seem to grow.

The team falls apart the moment he steps away. The people he has mentored still come to him first whenever anything comes up, two or three years later. The more capable he is, the more the people around him wait for him to decide.

Or perhaps you have been on the other side of this: you had someone too capable around you, someone who thought ahead of you and decided for you in everything — and you eventually realized that you had never once had the chance to grow your own judgment.

Why does "knowing everything" actually make it impossible to grow anyone else?

That is exactly what Laozi addresses in Chapter 65 of the Daodejing. And this chapter contains the most misread line in the whole book — misread for over two thousand years.

II. The Most Misread Line: Who Is the Subject?

The chapter opens with Laozi saying:

"Those who practice the Dao did not do so to make the people bright — they did so to keep themselves in the position of 'not knowing.'"

The most common reading is: "One who follows the Dao does not enlighten the people — instead he makes them ignorant."

Read this way, Laozi becomes an advocate of keeping people in the dark for the convenience of those who rule. This reading has spread so widely it has become the "standard interpretation."

But this is a misreading of the literal subject — it has substituted the wrong subject.

"Bright" (ming) and "ignorant" (yu) are not describing what is done to others — they describe the practitioner's own posture:

— "Did not do so to make the people bright" — not "don't enlighten the people," but "the practitioner does not hold up a sign saying 'I am the one who understands' to press upon others."

— "Did so to keep in the position of 'not knowing'" — not "make the people ignorant," but "the practitioner himself holds to the position of 'not knowing' — not showing off, not asserting ability, putting on a posture of unknowing."

— The pronoun "them" (zhi) refers to "the whole matter of dealing with others," not to "the people."

There is a decisive piece of textual evidence.

In Chapter 20, Laozi says in his own voice: "My heart is like a fool's."

The subject is Laozi himself, holding to the position of "not knowing" — not saying others are fools.

Same book, same word (yu), same subject. So the "not knowing" in this chapter means the practitioner putting himself in that position — not making others ignorant.

In Chapter 10, Laozi also asks: "Understanding all things with clarity — can you do so without imposing 'I know' upon others?" — be clear about everything inside, but not use that clarity as pressure on others.

Taken together, the real meaning of this line is:

A person who is truly clear does not position himself as "the one who knows everything" when dealing with others.

One character's difference, and the direction is completely reversed: one version says "press others downward," the other says "place yourself lower." Laozi always meant the second. This misreading matters because it turns a teaching about humility into a teaching about manipulation.

III. Why "Hard to Lead"? Because People Can Grow Themselves

Laozi continues:

"The difficulty of governing the people comes from their capacity to grow their own knowing."

This line is also commonly misread. The received text even adds the word "too much" — "because the people have too many clever thoughts, they are hard to manage" — one extra word and people become "crafty."

But the Mawangdui silk manuscript reads simply "from their knowing" — without that extra word. It is a neutral, even positive statement:

People are "hard to lead" precisely because they can grow their own knowing — that is human nature.

The difficulty is not that people are crafty; the difficulty is that every person has their own judgment and their own path — you cannot fill them in like a blank space.

This connects to the previous chapter's (ch. 64) "assist the self-so nature of ten thousand things and dare not act in their stead" — people have their own "self-so nature"; what you can do is support, not force.

Seen from today: give a new person every step pre-thought, every answer spoonfed — they get up to speed faster, yes — but they never develop the internal muscle of forming their own judgment. Give another new person only the direction, let them run into things on their own and think through them, slow as that is — what they have bumped into and thought through is what truly grows into them.

People are "hard to lead" precisely because they are alive and capable of growth. That is not a problem — it is the whole point.

IV. Forcing Your Understanding on Others Is a Kind of Colonization

Then come the chapter's two pivotal lines:

"Therefore, leading through 'I know' is the robber of the community; leading through 'I do not know' is the virtue of the community."

— "Leading through 'I know'" — using one's own answers and judgments as instruments to run a team — is "the robber of the community."

— "Leading through 'I do not know'" — stepping back first, not occupying the position of "I understand" — is "the virtue of the community."

What is a robber? A robber steals. What is stolen? — The other person's opportunity to grow their own knowing.

This is, bluntly, a kind of colonization:

You fill the space that should be filled by the other person growing their own understanding — like planting your own crops in someone else's field. No matter how well your crops grow, theirs can never grow again.

You have surely seen this: a senior person, watching a newer person do something imperfectly, cannot resist stepping in and doing it over themselves. The result improves — but that newer person has just lost one chance to learn from their own mistake and fix it themselves. The next time the same situation comes up, they still won't know. Every time you "help," you do the growing for them — and their own part grows a little less.

While "leading through not-knowing" — stepping back, not rushing to give the answer, leaving the space open — gives the other person room to grow into it. That is what "virtue of the community" means.

The hard part is: ceding space requires holding back. Holding back from giving the answer; holding back while watching someone work slowly; holding back that urge of "I could solve this in one sentence." Giving the answer is the fastest and most satisfying move — but the fastest path often blocks the other person at the door of growth.

Note: "leading through not-knowing" does not mean knowing nothing and simply letting go.

The Legalist tradition reads this line as "the ruler conceals his intelligence so that the people are also kept in the dark" — still "pressing people downward." Laozi means the opposite:

You hold to "not knowing" not so that others also won't know — but to leave the space open for others to grow their own knowing.

One presses people down; the other lifts them up. The directions are exactly reversed.

In Silicon Valley, the best mentors I have seen tend to say one particular line most often: "I'm not sure — what do you think?" — Not because they don't know, but because they understand: fill in the answer completely, and that person can never grow their own judgment.

V. Mysterious Virtue: Looks Like "Backward" — Actually the True Way Forward

The final passage is Laozi's summation of this whole teaching:

"Always knowing these two is also a model. Always knowing this model — that is called mysterious virtue (xuan de). Mysterious virtue is deep and far; it goes against the grain of things; and yet it arrives at the great flowing-with."

"Always knowing these two" — always holding clearly in mind these two principles (forcing is stealing; ceding is virtue). That is the model — a measuring rod you can hold up at any moment.

Each time you want to speak up with an answer or reach in to do something for someone else, hold up this rod: is this move "growing for them," or "letting them grow"? Am I filling the space, or leaving it open? — Ask yourself that once, and you'll know whether to act.

Always having this measuring rod — that is called "mysterious virtue." Xuan is depth; de is the force that lets ten thousand things grow themselves. Mysterious virtue is the kind of virtue that lives deep and makes no show of itself.

Laozi says it is "deep and far" — deep, and distant. Not physically distant, but far from ordinary understanding: most people cannot see it at a glance.

"Goes against the grain of things" — so it looks, from the surface, like it is going exactly against what everyone else does.

Everyone is competing to be "the one with answers" (that's what looks like competence, like things going smoothly); the person of mysterious virtue, by contrast, steps back and holds to "not knowing" (that looks like "not doing anything, having no ability").

But "going against the grain" is not "being contrarian." It only looks that way from the outside because it runs so deep. As Laozi says in Chapter 41: "The bright Dao looks dim; the advancing Dao looks like retreat" — what is truly bright looks dark; what is truly advancing looks like falling back.

"And yet it arrives at the great flowing-with" — and precisely this way leads to what Laozi calls "the great flowing-with."

Here is a pair worth holding: small flowing-with, and great flowing-with.

— Small flowing-with — the surface kind. The capable person who handles everything for you — looks efficient, looks smooth — but the people underneath cannot move without him. The moment he is away, the whole thing collapses. This "smooth" is bought by loading all the weight onto one person; it looks most stable and is actually most fragile.

— Great flowing-with — doesn't look like flowing-with at all at first. You step back and leave the space open; in the short run things look slow and messy — but the people around you grow, one by one. One day you are not there, and everything still runs — that is the real flowing-with.

These two point in opposite directions. Only the second is the real thing.

VI. To the Reader

This chapter offers several things you can put to use right now:

First: put away the sign that says "I know best."

The more you position yourself as "the one who knows everything," the less the people around you can grow their own judgment (not holding up the sign of "I am the brightest"). Being clear inside is good; using that clarity as a sign to press others is another thing entirely.

Second: when someone "can't figure it out," they are growing.

That is exactly when their own thing is forming. Don't rush to fill in the answer — the ability to work things out independently is their nature, not your problem (their knowing).

Third: don't force your answers into others.

Filling the space entirely blocks what should have grown there on its own (the robber of the community). Ask instead: "what do you think?" — and leave the space open (the virtue of the community).

Fourth: holding to "not knowing" is not incapacity.

Stepping back is not inaction — it is leaving room for others to grow. "I'm not sure — what do you think?" is sometimes more powerful than "let me tell you the answer."

Fifth: what looks "backward" may be the true way forward.

Having everything done for you is smooth in the short run (small flowing-with); being allowed to grow yourself is what is truly smooth (great flowing-with). Know the difference between the near-term smooth and the long-term real.

Sixth: this measuring rod applies to yourself too.

Stay in the position of "I'm still not sure," and you keep growing; the moment you feel "I fully understand," you are the first one to stop. Holding yourself in the position of "not knowing" is not false modesty — it is leaving room for your own continued growth.

This chapter's core can be summed in one line —

The person who truly knows how to grow others is not the one who "knows best" — it is the one who holds their knowing back, so that others can grow their own.