Chapter 764: Gazing at two brilliant stars

Gazing at two brilliant stars.

April 15: Gazing at two brilliant stars.

Kongmu's way of raising a child is very methodical; she did not let Confucius go die**ben, but let the young Confucius learn various life skills in practice, focusing on cultivating survival ability and interest in knowledge..

Young Confucius herded livestock for the rich, worked as a small accountant in a warehouse, and for survival also learned to be a bugle player; he could sing and play various instruments; he had many hobbies, was talented and versatile. In these life experiences, Confucius earned money to support himself, honed his survival ability, and also enriched the content of life; most importantly, in the tempering of life, he cultivated a craving and interest for learning and knowledge.

Many successful people have achievements inseparable from interest. For example, the great Tang poet Li Bai lifelong loved writing poetry and wandering. Such interest in wandering and writing poetry was cultivated in Li Bai's youth.

Li Bai, as soon as he became aware, embarked on the path of gradual drifting. Thus, Li Bai's life was almost spent in wandering and drifting; wandering and drifting brought Li Bai a dreamlike happiness.

"Read ten thousand volumes, travel ten thousand miles." became his destined pursuit.

In Li Bai's view, success in life is not breaking through each life goal; such scheming and striving is too exhausting. In Li Bai's view, the meaning of life is a splendid blossoming; in that brief blossoming, one must make every petal blaze brightly and gloriously; each time, one must squander all of life's potential, seeking perfection in the blossom, breaking free from vulgarity, transcending the mundane—"Natural without carving, clear water yields the hibiscus."

"Ah, poet, night has already fallen, your hair is already three thousand zhang white."

"In solitary contemplation, have you heard the news of the next life?"

"It is night already; I long knew my hair is three thousand zhang white."

The poet said, "Although the night is late, my three thousand zhang of white hair, I still wander in solitude; I will forever guard the heart that drifted and was solitary in youth."

"If I sit quietly by the bank of life, pondering and waiting, who else would compose the passionate verses of life?"

In fact, Li Bai's passionate, heaven‑shaking, ghost‑weeping poems were all written in solitude and wandering.

"If there were travelers who left home, came here to keep watch, lowering their heads to silently listen to the whispers in this darkness, who would whisper the secret of life into their ears? If I shut my doors, trying to free myself from worldly entanglements?"

Li Bai is just like that: unrestrained and unbound, roaming like a heavenly horse, coming and going alone.

Naturally, in Li Bai's wandering, among the mountains and rivers of his memory, what most stirs the poet's heartstrings is still the hometown's bright moon, the few cries of the nightjar at night. It is the person who, under the moon, guards the fallen flowers, who says: "My lady has just resumed her proper appearance, plucking flowers before the gate. The young lad comes on a bamboo horse, circling the bed, playing with green plums. Living together in Changgan Lane, we two have no suspicion or resentment."

In life's repeated journeys through wind and rain, he displays life's finest to the world; this is the true meaning of life. Confucius did so, Li Bai also did so……….

This too is interest; the Master said, "Those who know are not as good as those who love; those who love are not as good as those who understand." One interest in rites, one interest in poetry, I walk and gaze upon these two brilliant stars in the historical starry sky, thinking.