A Dream of Being a Butterfly, or a Butterfly Dreaming of Me

answered by Zhuangzi, "Discussion on Making All Things Equal"

기원전 4세기경

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

The Truman Show (1998)

dir. Peter Weir · USA

A man broadcast without his knowledge since birth discovers, at the edge of a perfectly safe and happy world, a door leading to the real one. Beyond it, nothing is guaranteed.

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Between a safe lie and a dangerous truth, which will I choose?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

昔者莊周夢為蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也。自喻適志與，不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為蝴蝶與，蝴蝶之夢為周與。

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased, unaware that he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke and was, veritably, Zhuang Zhou again. He did not know whether Zhuang Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly was now dreaming it was Zhuang Zhou.

💡 TL;DR

Waking from his dream of being a butterfly, Zhuangzi wrote that he could never be certain whether he was a man who had dreamed of a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming it was a man.

📝The Classic Answers

Waking from his dream of being a butterfly, Zhuangzi wrote that he could never be certain whether he was a man who had dreamed of a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming it was a man. This question is not doubt but freedom. Faced with the impossibility of certainty about what is real, he simply let go of both worlds lightly. Between a perfectly happy life inside a well-built set and an uncertain freedom before a real, crashing sea, I know in the end that the side capable of asking its own questions is the side that is truly alive.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Recall one thing today that is so comfortable you never even questioned it, and ask once, 'Could this too be a well-built set?'

📖 Classic Source: Zhuangzi, "Discussion on Making All Things Equal". 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.