Feeling May Rise, but It Halts at Propriety

answered by The Great Preface to the Book of Songs

기원전~기원후 초 편찬(모시 서문)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

My Mother and Her Guest (1961)

dir. Shin Sang-ok · South Korea

A quiet feeling passes between a widowed young mother and a house guest, yet for the sake of the era's propriety and a child, the two finally swallow that emotion within. Is a love never expressed a failed love, or a love completed in another way? Is restraint the absence of feeling, or its depth?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Do I see restrained love as suppressed love, belittling the depth of a heart that governed itself?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

發乎情止乎禮義

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Feeling arises from the heart, yet halts at what is proper.

💡 TL;DR

This line from the Great Preface does not deny feeling.

📝The Classic Answers

This line from the Great Preface does not deny feeling. The heart arises from feeling — love is natural. It only says that such feeling knows to halt at what is proper. I used to mistake restraint for a lack of emotion. Yet a love that chooses not to express itself holds a sincerity no less, and sometimes deeper, than a love that does. When one left alone holds a feeling yet keeps propriety and steps back, that stepping back is not coldness but a care to protect both the other and oneself. I learn that pouring out every feeling is not the only truth. A love that knows how to halt is also love.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Weigh whether a feeling you want to express now is for the other or for you, and practice, at times, holding it back.

📖 Classic Source: The Great Preface to the Book of Songs. 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.