"Onko Chishin" (Learning from the Past), and What If Confucius Entered a Prompt - An Essay on Playing with Words

Don't you ever get the feeling that the world is being repainted anew every time you look at your smartphone screen?
OS updates, new AI models—the trends of yesterday are pushed into a corner as "old news" by the time you wake up in the morning.

Why don't we stop and think for a moment?
Perhaps we are being pushed around a little too much by the word "newness."

At times like this, the four-character idiom "Onko Chishin" (learning from the past) suddenly crosses my mind.
It's that old-fashioned phrase that seems like it would be posted on a school wall. However, when you trace the "texture" hidden behind these words, it's strange how it starts to look like a sharp strategy for mastering the latest technology.

First of all, consider the character "On" (warm) in "Onko Chishin."
In reality, it doesn't just have the polite meaning of "reviewing." If you trace the origins of the kanji, a scene comes to mind: putting cold, solidified soup into a pot and heating it up again until it bubbles.

Try to imagine it.

A stew that has been sleeping in the back of the refrigerator, its origins unknown. As it is, it's bland and unappetizing. But you move it to a pot, turn on the heat, and slowly stir it with a wooden spatula. Then, the trapped aroma rises, the fat melts, and "life" is breathed into it once again.

This is the essence of "On" (warming).

Instead of viewing past knowledge as a "stuffed specimen" displayed in a museum showcase, you put it on the fire with your own hands. You reheat it until it bubbles, reaching your own body temperature or even higher. Only through this process of "temperature change" can we encounter "something new."

What if Confucius were to time-slip into the modern day and open a MacBook? He surely wouldn't think of the Analects as a "fixed scripture." For Confucius, "Onko Chishin" might be closer to what we call "prompt engineering" today.

"Onko" (warming the past) means organizing the vast training datasets that humanity has accumulated over thousands of years and understanding their context. And then, casting the "prompt" of the modern era into them.

"Hey, 2,500-year-old dataset. How would you hack this prickly SNS society of today?"

The answer that returns the moment you ask that question is "Chishin" (knowing the new).

It is not just tracing past logs, but re-calculating them in the current context. Onko Chishin might be called an extremely creative act where we pose the question of "now" to the language model that is the vast wisdom of the past.

A common misunderstanding is the conservative idea that:
"Onko Chishin = Let's protect the good old things."
But don't you think that's a bit boring?
True Onko Chishin might be something much more aggressive.

For example, in a business setting, putting the founder's teachings in a frame and displaying them is merely "storage," not "Onko" (warming).

"If the founder were standing here in the Reiwa era, where smartphone payments are widespread, with only 10,000 yen in their pocket, what kind of mischief would they pull to surprise us?"

That is how you drag the soul of the deceased into the frenzy of the modern day and make them dance along with us.

This is the correct way to practice 'Onko-chishin' (learning from the past).

The same can be said for the world of IT.

When you are exhausted from chasing the latest programming languages, try touching upon an old design philosophy from the 1970s. You will realize that at the root of the technology you thought was cutting-edge, there flows a philosophy from half a century ago.

The discovery that, "Oh, so it all comes back to this after all."

That is not a regression, but rather like a new view found after climbing one step up a spiral staircase.
It is not a retro hobby, but a "reboot" using high-purity fuel called the past.

We tend to think that the answer lies in the "latest thing."
However, there is data lying at our feet like old stones that no one looks at. If you pick them up, warm them with your own body heat, and hold them up to the light of the modern day, you may see unexpected rainbow-colored reflections.

There must be plenty of "cold soup" sleeping around you as well.

It might be an old book you started reading, a story of a past failure, or an old tool that no one uses anymore. Before you throw them in the trash, try putting them on the fire of your "now" just once. From the pot that has begun to simmer, hints for the future will rise along with the steam.

In that moment, the world might look a little more interesting than it did yesterday.

Note
The etymology of "Onko-chishin" (learning from the past) comes from the "Analects," a collection of sayings by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Specifically, it originates from a passage in the "Wei Zheng" chapter of the "Analects" which says, "The Master said, 'If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others,'" and it preaches the importance of "learning deeply from the past to gain new knowledge and perspectives."
This teaching has come to be widely used in Japanese education and business settings as a way to value past history and the wisdom of predecessors while applying it to the modern day.

・Source: "Analects" (Wei Zheng chapter).
・Original text: "The Master said, 'If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.'"
・Meaning: "If you repeatedly study old things and gain new knowledge, you will be able to become a teacher to others."
・Meaning of "On" (warm): It is used not only to mean "to warm up," but also to mean "to seek," "to review," and "to examine deeply."

Book Introduction

・Super-abridged Edition: The Analects and the Abacus (Kindle Edition)
By Eiichi Shibusawa, Ken Shibusawa
Wedge Inc. (2021/1/16)
The timeless classic by Eiichi Shibusawa from the Taiga drama "Seiten wo Tsuke"
Shibusawa, who literally lived "two lives in one" during the great turning point of Japan from the end of the Edo period to the Meiji era, was tossed about by the great whirlpool of the times and experienced repeated setbacks, yet he carved out the future with high aspirations as if to pierce the blue sky, eventually becoming known as the "father of Japanese modern capitalism." His descendant, author and manager Ken Shibusawa, explains it in a "super-abridged" style (modern translation summary) for business leaders living in the post-COVID era without a compass and for business people who will carry the future.
(* Book explanations, etc., are generally based on the descriptions on the linked site (Amazon). Please refer to the link for detailed content.)

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