学而时习之章

Original text

子曰：“学而时习之，不亦说乎？有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎？人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎？”

Translation

Confucius said, "One studies and often takes reviews, isn't it the source of delight? One has men from the same line to visit from afar, isn't it the origin of happiness? One is unknown and stay without frustration, isn't it the expectation of the noble?"

Annotation from research

Every Chinese who has received compulsory education knows this section. It defines the channel where people get delight, happiness and nobleness from. Confucius maintains that the happiness shall be the result of people's cultivation. Internally, one should keep studying, and approach delight from the in-depth achievement in the knowledge of the world, or the improvement though the sentimentality, but not the superficial body entertainment or fortune written in water. Here Confucius also emphasizes the importance of repetition. People, especially the youth, are always too easy to be attracted by new ideas. However, only through repetition will one build a solid fundamental upon which can one flash real innovation. But only becoming a learned man is far from enough from Confucius' view. One should make friendship with others. Confucius does not use the item "friend" but a more precise word "men from the same line". For in traditional Chinese, friends can be divided into two types: "men from the same line" or "men of the same aspiration, comrade". Confucius means to point out only the common interest in study here. He also advocates that men from the same line should contact regularly, despite of the distance. A simple fact is that, men from the same line feel happy when getting together. Certainly, physical distance is no longer a problem today. But the laziness and the psychological distance become even greater gap, and prevent people from happiness. In ancient times, the communication system and public media is not developed. So, people can only become known over one-by-one introduction. This is also why Confucius would like learned people to go afar and pay visits to the men of the same line and get to know more potential opportunities. We can see in comparison with Bacon's great proverb "knowledge is power" that Confucius first point out that knowledge is firstly happiness, and only knowledge itself cannot become power. Certainly, both Bacon and Confucius agree that learned people will play the role of governor, but Confucius not only delivers an abstract concept, but also a practical methodology: one should build a solid knowledge and moral background, and one should contact more to touch base of transferring knowledge into power. And power comes out from the happiness. So we can see the advantage of the Confucius' political and ideological combination. He does not directly goes in power, but he does first retrieve happiness. The last sentence escalates the whole section, and proves again the idea that happiness is more than power. Even if one's merits are unrecognized, he should still remain in peace. The problems existing in the real world is mostly resulted from the chauvinism, not willing to leave any space on one or a nation's capability. Confucius tells that the happiness comes not from fighting, or showing the superiority, it comes from study and communication with men from the same line. So, nobleness is seen when one is unknown rather than one is admitted. Only if one understands the source of happiness is he recognized as a noble. It also implies that people are not in full control of destiny, but generally they can behave themselves. The noble is one of the core concept of Confucius', here we see its first appearance and explanation: the noble gets delight from studying, and puts attention to happiness more than recognition, willing to make great efforts and let it take its own course. In this very first section Confucius uses concise words to express his way of how people can live happy lives and which people are considered noble.