Not Even a Common Man Can Be Robbed of His Will

answered by Analects, Zi Han

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🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Yol (1982)

dir. Yilmaz Guney · Turkey

A person is driven to the very bottom, stripped of everything. Do want and oppression take even a person's last dignity, or is there something that cannot be seized, that remains when the outside has taken all the rest?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

At the very bottom, having lost everything, what is the last thing a person must keep?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

三軍可奪帥也匹夫不可奪志也

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

An army may be robbed of its general, but a common man cannot be robbed of his will.

💡 TL;DR

Confucius said an army may be robbed of its general, but one person cannot be robbed of his will.

📝The Classic Answers

Confucius said an army may be robbed of its general, but one person cannot be robbed of his will. Wealth, standing, even freedom can be taken by outside force, yet the will alone no one can seize, so long as one does not let it go. At the bottom, having lost everything, the last thing to keep is not one's circumstances but the will that makes one oneself. As long as a person holds that will, he does not wholly collapse even in ruin. I ask what the one thing is that I would not let go of, though the outside strip away all the rest.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

If you feel you have lost much today, write down clearly one will of your own that no one can take from you.

📖 Classic Source: Analects, Zi Han. 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.