One Must Not Fail to Know a Parent's Age

answered by Analects, Li Ren

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🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Tokyo Story (1953)

dir. Yasujiro Ozu · Japan

Aged parents travel a long way to visit, but their children, busy with their own lives, welcome them while gradually finding them a burden and pushing them aside. Within the natural flow of generations passing and parents receding, it asks what remains as belated regret.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

As generations flow and parents are slowly pushed aside, what do we realize too late?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

父母之年，不可不知也。一則以喜，一則以懼

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

One must know one's parents' age — on the one hand with joy, on the other with dread.

💡 TL;DR

Confucius said one must know a parent's age — with joy on one hand, dread on the other.

📝The Classic Answers

Confucius said one must know a parent's age — with joy on one hand, dread on the other. In the coexistence of these two hearts I see the truth of time. That a parent still lives is joy, but that their age climbs is the dread of an approaching farewell. When children, busy with their own lives, absently push aged parents to the margins, the river of passing generations silently carries the parents to the far shore. Most realize this far too late. I choose not to take the present, while my parents live, for granted, and to remember with dread that the remaining time is finite.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Today reach out first to a parent or aging family member — even a short hello, without postponing. That time does not increase.

📖 Classic Source: Analects, Li Ren. 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.