Zhuang Zhou's Dream, or the Butterfly's

answered by Zhuangzi, Discussion on Making All Things Equal

기원전 4세기경

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Amarcord (1973)

dir. Federico Fellini · Italy

The four seasons of a seaside town are recalled through a boy's eyes and the thick, boastful talk of its grown-ups. When, inside stories swollen like fog, what actually happened blurs into what one wishes to believe, it asks whether the truth of a season lies on the side of fact, or is held within the embellishment.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Between an embellished memory and what actually happened, which side holds the truth of a whole season of life?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

不知周之夢爲胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢爲周與

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

I cannot tell whether Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly is dreaming it is Zhuang Zhou.

📝The Classic Answers

I take a thread for this question from Zhuangzi's butterfly dream. If we can never settle whether Zhuang Zhou dreamt the butterfly or the butterfly dreamt him, then quarreling over which is fact may be futile. When a town tells its own past inflated like fog, that exaggeration is not a lie but another truth — one that holds how the season actually felt. What no list of facts can hold — the laughter, the longing, the shame — stays more vivid inside the swollen memory. Rather than straining to restore a season exactly as it was, I choose first to read the heart that wished to remember it that way.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

When you recall a season of your past, before checking how far it strays from fact, first ask, 'why do I wish to remember it this way?'

📖 Classic Source: Zhuangzi, Discussion on Making All Things Equal. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.