Goodbye Confucius.

The Master talks more about what a Good person should do which will make them good leader. The book often uses the term common people and scholars. And describes how people like them, scholars, affect the common people. This might be because intellectuals had more power in the politics at the time of Confucius.
Well, one of the lessons of Master that drove my attention is in chapter 17:8,

“The Master said, ‘Zilu! Have you heard about the six (virtuous) words and their six corresponding vices?’
Zilu replied, ‘I have not.’
‘Sit! I will tell you about them.
‘Loving Goodness without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of foolishness. Loving wisdom without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of deviance. Loving trustworthiness without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of harmful rigidity. Loving uptightness without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of intolerance. Loving courage without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of unruliness: Loving resoluteness without balancing it with a love for learning will result in the vice of willfulness.’

The key terms here are “learn” and “balance”. Surprisingly, balance is a word I have always ended up with whenever I thought of something. For example, the balance between giving up and accepting; working and playing; sharing and reserving; dreaming and being realistic; etc. Even good things needs to be balanced. According to Confucius it is learning which balances out things. Maybe it is because the knowledge one wants to learn is infinite just like rain. However, I believe learning is not only factor that balances out things. I think the opposite of it, it’s what balances out things. Black and white, fire and water, good and bad. One can identify dark because there is light. One can identify good because there is bad. And so-on. This happens because comparing is one of the most common ways to recognize things, I think. I mean, think about it. Heroes wouldn’t exist if there is no bad.


Another quote I liked is from chapter 15: 28, “The Master said, ‘When the multitude hates a person, you must examine them and judge for yourself. The same holds true for someone whom the multitude love.’” What Master wants to say here, is that never get influenced by what the others say. This is a hard thing to do. Or at least for me it is. And I think it is one of those lessons that sounds so obvious and easy, but hard to do. Such as “trust yourself.” Or “make your words into action.” (Actually, they don’t sound that easy.) Well, anyways I like most of things Master mentions. However, I sometimes doubt if that’s because they are similar to my culture. Or because I really do like what Confucius is saying, without any pre-culture influence.