What Grows Strong Soon Grows Old

answered by Tao Te Ching, ch.30

기원전 6~4세기

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

dir. Yasujiro Ozu · Japan

An aging father, after marrying off his last remaining child, faces growing old alone in the emptied house. It asks whether the loneliness of a season left solitary past one's prime is something gone wrong, or the natural way by which strength passes into age.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

At the end of a season, aging alone after all the children have left, how do we accept the loneliness?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

物壯則老，是謂不道

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

What grows strong soon grows old; to cling by force to strength is called not-the-Way.

💡 TL;DR

Laozi said what grows strong soon grows old, so do not cling by force to strength.

📝The Classic Answers

Laozi said what grows strong soon grows old, so do not cling by force to strength. I read this as comfort about aging and being left alone. That the vigor and bustle of one's prime someday fade into solitude is not a mistake but the natural order all things follow. The loneliness of old age after the children have all left is not because something went wrong, but simply the season's law by which strength leads to age. Cling to past vigor against that order and loneliness becomes resentment; accept it willingly and it becomes a quiet autumn. Rather than forcibly holding a setting season, I choose to meet even its loneliness calmly, as one grain of nature.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If longing for a past prime makes now feel lonely, regard 'strength passing into age as the natural way,' and savor one quiet thing unique to this season.

📖 Classic Source: Tao Te Ching, ch.30. 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.