So Glad He Forgets His Cares, Unaware Age Draws Near

answered by Analects, Shu Er

기원전 5세기(공자 언행록)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Old Partner (2008)

dir. Lee Chung-ryoul · South Korea

An old farmer and an even older ox have labored wordlessly in the same field a whole life, and now both reach the edge of theirs. Facing parting from a being so faithfully shared over long years, the question of how to accept aging and death remains.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Facing the end with a being that labored beside us wordlessly a whole life, how do we accept aging and parting?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

發憤忘食，樂以忘憂，不知老之將至

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

In eagerness he forgets to eat, in joy he forgets his cares, and does not notice that old age is coming on.

💡 TL;DR

Confucius said that absorbed in work and gladness, one does not even notice old age arriving.

📝The Classic Answers

Confucius said that absorbed in work and gladness, one does not even notice old age arriving. I see in this a calm wisdom toward labor and time. The years an old ox and an old farmer spent leaning on each other, plowing the same field, dissolve not in counting age but in walking together. What makes the coming parting sad is not that those years were vain, but that they were so faithfully shared. Rather than fearfully counting age and the end, I choose to set my heart on quietly living the same day beside the one now at my side.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Recall one person or thing long by your side, and instead of counting age or wear, reckon one thing the shared time has left behind.

📖 Classic Source: Analects, Shu Er. 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.