Doing by Doing Nothing


On Friday night, I watched my favorite program, the Voice: China. They usually have four very notable singers as judges. These judges each pick 5 or 6 students out of all of the contestants that enter. It was very competitive, and sometimes all the judges would like a single singer and try to get them to join their team. After many auditions, each judge was happy with who they selected. They would train their contestants, and then each judge’s team would compete with the others.

The image is from Cfensi – WordPress.com.

The other night, when I watched it, instead of competing, the contestants did duets with one judge and then were critiqued by the other judges. I happened to watch this group belonging to Jay Chou, with two female students. The song the first one sang was called Peace. I thought she sang well, but when the second one sang, I felt more at peace, even though her song was more lively and lighthearted. Afterwards, the judges picked the singer they liked the most.

The thing that got to me was that a judge mentioned that the girl who sang Peace had tried so hard to express her feeling that she did not sing with peace as well, so the listener could not feel it either.
At first, I thought his criticism was tough, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is what I was trying to reach when I start to read Lao Tzu. As you can see, the second singer won the competition, and the judges voted for her overwhelmingly because her singing was full of joy and calmness, and sounded more natural and helped the listener feel the same. You didn’t feel that she tried at all, that she was just being herself and made the song her own. It simply flowed naturally.

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