Do you know what the next sentence of "rotten wood cannot be carved"?
Zi Yue: Rotten wood cannot be carved, and the wall of dung and soil cannot be carved.
"Rotten wood cannot be carved", a rotten wood cannot be carved, because the inside of the wood has already rotted, and no matter how hard you try to carve, it is useless;
"The wall of dung", passing through the mud wall that ants, earth dogs, etc. climbed loose,
"The wall of dung must not be crushed", 杇 (wu): is the tile knife that wipes the wall. If a wall is made of dung and soft mud, it is not strong in itself, it will fall, and if you paint its outside neatly and beautifully, sooner or later it will collapse.
Did Teacher Kong mean to demean a person when he said this? In fact, it is not, let's look at the original sentence.
Zaiyu day sleep. Zi Yue: Rotten wood cannot be carved, and the wall of dung and soil cannot be carved. Yu Yu and He Jie!
It's a story!
Zaiyu was a student of Confucius, and "Zaiyu Day Sleep" means that this apprentice likes to sleep during the day, which also means that Zaiyu is a lazy apprentice. Therefore, Teacher Kong made an analogy, saying that he was a wall of decaying wood or dung. But Confucius also said, "Yu Yu and He Jie!" In other words, Confucius felt that for Zaiyu, he was like that, and you should not be too demanding of him, and blame him. Let him sleep if he wants to!
Therefore, through this story, we can see that in fact, the focus of Kong Shengren's expression is not to say how unbearable the wall of decaying wood and dung is, but to say that everyone is different and has its own characteristics. Some people have big bodies and great strength, which are suitable for leading soldiers to fight; some people can think, learn, and be suitable for civilian duties; and the real governance of the country and the government must know people to make good use of them, if this person is obviously not good, you still have to put the mud on the wall, then if the result is not good, you can't blame the mud, it is a problem that the leader himself knows and does not know!