He liked also being seen and being congratulated on growing up such a fine looking and fortunate young fellow, for he was not the youth to hide his light under a bushel.
Yale Professor Annping Chin emphasizes that the purpose of learning, for Confucius, consisted in the opportunity to develop our moral and aesthetic sensibilities, to fulfill our humanity, and to do so with humility.
Instead of reading the instruction manual, we try to do it ourselves and waste three hours when we could have humbled ourselves and sharpened our mental saw.
True release from self-loathing tends to be a great deal more modest: we are only after a sane, fair and more accurate perspective on our ordinary earthly nature.