The Five Colors Blind the Eye

answered by Laozi, "Dao De Jing", Ch. 12

기원전 6~4세기

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

The Matrix (1999)

dir. The Wachowskis · USA

A moment arrives to choose between a perfectly comfortable virtual world and a painful but real one. Knowing the truth does not necessarily guarantee a better life.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Between a comfortable lie and a painful truth, which is true freedom?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

五色令人目盲，五音令人耳聾，五味令人口爽，馳騁畋獵令人心發狂，難得之貨令人行妨。

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the palate. Racing and hunting madden the mind. Rare goods lead one's conduct astray.

💡 TL;DR

Laozi said that dazzling colors, sounds, and flavors in fact damage the eye, the ear, and the palate.

📝The Classic Answers

Laozi said that dazzling colors, sounds, and flavors in fact damage the eye, the ear, and the palate. Stimulation that fills the senses completely is, in truth, a veil that keeps us from seeing what is real. Inside a perfectly engineered comfort, we can no longer tell true color from manufactured color. Before something dazzlingly bright, I narrow my eyes and ask first whether this brilliance lets me see, or keeps me from seeing.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Pick the smoothest, most convenient piece of information or choice you meet today, and pause to doubt whether it is real.

📖 Classic Source: Laozi, "Dao De Jing", Ch. 12. 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.