Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Those who know others are intelligent;
those who know themselves are truly wise.
Those who master others are strong;
those who master themselves have true power.

Those who know they have enough are truly wealthy.

Those who persist will reach their goal.

Those who keep their course have a strong will.
Those who embrace death will not perish,
but have life everlasting.

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What does it mean to know others?

Greene notes that instead of thinking over and over again and getting stuck in our heads, we must open ourselves to outside influences and try to get in other people’s heads. All of us are self-conscious, he notes. Nonetheless, because we have mirror neurons in our brains that enable us to feel what it would be like to be in somebody else’s shoes, we must use this power often. This type of knowledge is crucial for our success at work and in social connections. Instead of focusing on our own wants and hopes and acting based upon them, we must deeply understand what makes others tick and think from their perspectives in order to be able to reach them and use them to our advantage.

What does it mean to know oneself?

In the first chapter of the 50th Law, Greene argues that our “realism” sometimes should be directed towards ourselves. It is easy to observe and judge others. But can you do almost the same thing for yourself? Jesus also says that humans commonly make the mistake of detecting the “speck” in other people’s eyes while failing to see the “beam” in their own eyes.

What does it mean to master oneself?

We mostly have conflicting desires that cause inner struggles. We know we have to study hard for tests, for example, but also feel like going to a pub and have a drink with friends. It is easy to think that a person mastering himself is the one that is able to abstain from all such outside temptations and walk steadfastly along the course of life that he chose for himself. This is partially right. However, in my own view, the Laozian sage is a person who knows when he is most vulnerable and when he is most strong. Based on honest assessments of his capabilities, he will not overestimate his character and determination or willpower. It may appear to us that he is sometimes deviating from the prescribed course of life. However, even while he is zigzagging, he is consistently pushing himself in the long term towards a particular destination that he was aiming for. We should not aspire to be and cannot be an invincible person allowing zero mistakes in our paths. We sometimes make mistakes but will not tolerate ourselves making excuses to justify our repeated mistakes. Whereas a Confucian sage’s willpower is often full-throttled but short-lived, a Laozian sage’s path will sometimes be circuitous but never falls astray from the endeavor to reach the destination.

Right now, I am also thinking about a Korean high school kid studying hard for his upcoming college admission tests. Unlike the students in the U.S. that can afford to learn to play musical instruments and participate in volunteer activities in local communities, college applicants in Korea are graded absolutely numerically only according to their test scores. In South Korea, an offer of admission to a prestigious school is often decided according to whether your score is a half point higher than your last-remaining competitor’s. That is, if your score is a half point lower than your competitor’s, you will be denied admission to the school and instead your competitor gets in by beating you out. On the other hand, supposing your score was a half point higher, you will beat him out of the race and get the qualification to the school. All this is determined based on the numerical score points of college admission tests that you take on a single particular day; there are no other test dates throughout the year. I will rephrase this. Your fate is decided by a single day’s national admission test. In addition, these tests are not so easy. From my own experience, the national math subject test taken by South Korean students sending applications to science departments is ten times more difficult than AP Calculus BC. This is no exaggeration. If you can’t believe it, download the real yearly test questions available on the official website in Korea and solve them for yourself. I am adamant that it is way easier to get a 5 on AP than earning 96 percentile points on the Korean math subject test. (Personally, I earned a 5 on Calculus BC when I was fifteen but ended up earning only around 60 percentiles on the Korean math subject test for future science majors when I was seventeen.)

The common feature of the fledglings (the 12 th graders) that have just embarked on a year’s race to the national college admission test is that they start with full concentration on studies and work relentlessly non-stop with a meager four hours of sleep every day. As summer is about to come, a half of them lose the initial initiative and fail to consistently stay in the course.

However, an experienced test-taker (who usually challenges for the test again after high school graduation) is well-aware of this “physiological” rhythm and is careful to make sure that he does not burn himself out starting in early February (the test is usually taken in cold November). What is notable is that he is able to stick to the regular course of staying in the game very consistently. This guy has a higher chance of winning the game. Whether it is a warm dozy spring day or a simmering sweaty day in summer, he is consistently alert and very persistent. This level of persistence will win him almost anything – if he is able to maintain this willpower throughout his life (although this is impossible unless he is ready to mentally screw himself up) – if not earning the honor of becoming the very best of all.

Those who embrace death will not perish, but have life everlasting.

Regarding this last verse stating that people will live forever, we can safely argue that this is totally bullshit.