| Chapter 1: | The Rationale for Reading the Analects Existentially |
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and of his son, he experienced many other setbacks, the most important of which was political. Confucius traveled to several states in order to gain a hearing from the rulers, but none of these rulers adopted his vision; in the end, he returned to his home state. Readers can feel Confucius’s frustration when he said, “Let us go home. Let us go home. Our young men at home are wildly ambitious, and have great accomplishments for all to see, but they do not know how to prune themselves” (5:22).
Frustration is another human condition that accompanies people as long as they wish to accomplish things in the world—for this world is not a world of unconnected individuals, but rather a world inhabited with people who have all manner of desires and ambitions and wishes to accomplish their work. This world is a world beyond human control; therefore, frustration is inevitable. Confucius indicated a way to transcend frustration when he described himself as “the sort of man who forgets to eat when he tries to solve a problem that has been driving him to distraction, who is so full of joy that he forgets his worries and does not notice the onset of old age” (7:31).
But for Confucius, frustration should not be the object of worry; he is more deeply concerned that moral virtues be practiced:
.” (7:3)
Confucius knew well the discrepancy between knowing what is ethical and doing it. It is easy to know what de (virtue) is, but it is difficult to practice it. It is easy to gain theoretical knowledge, but it is difficult to put it into practice. It is easy to know what an appropriate thing to do is, but it is difficult to actually do it. It is easy to know what is not ethical but it is difficult to correct oneself. From an existential point of view, human beings encounter others in everyday life and each person’s responses to this encounter constitute ethics. From Confucius’s point of