Too Much Is as Bad as Too Little — Even Love Has a Measure

answered by The Analects, Book of Advancing (Xian Jin)

기원전 5세기(공자 언행록)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Mother (2009)

dir. Bong Joon-ho · South Korea

A mother will do anything to protect a child driven into crisis. Her devotion is sublime, yet when protection exceeds all measure, love swallows even the truth. When love for a child blinds itself, can it still be called love?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

In the name of love, do I bind the other rather than protect them?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

過猶不及

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

To go too far is as wrong as to fall short.

💡 TL;DR

Confucius' brief line applies to love as well.

📝The Classic Answers

Confucius' brief line applies to love as well. Just as too little love withers a person, too much love binds them. When love for a child becomes attachment, it serves not the other but my own need to soothe my anxiety. I do not think ill of the one who loves — I only stay wary of the moment that love steals the other's room to breathe. True love includes not only the strength to hold but the strength to release. I ask honestly today whether my love lets the other grow, or shuts them in.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Ask once today whether your worry for someone is truly for them, or for the soothing of your own anxiety.

📖 Classic Source: The Analects, Book of Advancing (Xian Jin). 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.