Being Obscure

Verse 70, Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching (as translated by Ursula K. Le Guin)

My words are so easy to understand,
so easy to follow,

and yet nobody in the world
understands or follows them.

Words come from an ancestry,
deeds from a mastery;
when these are unknown, so am I.

In my obscurity
is my value.
That’s why the wise
wear their jade under common clothes.