I usually like to pride myself on my ability to understand the written word, and to be able to unravel the tangled web of ideas that authors form. To take a story to the next level, and give it meaning. To take those lifeless pieces of script and make them into something real. Chinese literature is proving to challenge me, and quite frankly, keeps knocking me on my ass. I don't understand their culture, lives, history. I don't get any of the deep intricacies that make up the web of their lives, let alone get anything coming out of these stories. The doors to the meaning are locked, shut tight. No room to wiggle or even catch a glimpse of the inside depths.
However, I did catch a glimpse the other day. We had just read a short story, named 'Spring Silkworms'. Short version is that it follows a family locked in tradition, battling to make a living raising silkworms. In the end, they all fail and only fall farther into debt.
Which got me thinking....I know I say on a regular basis 'Life sucks and then you die'. And that's what I pulled out of this story at first. But then I thought about it. Yeah, life sucks. And everyone does eventually die. But what else can you do?
Life is one of those never ending challenges, except no one knows what happens when you finish the race. Do you get the golden pass to a heaven, or do you actually just spend eternity in a box underneath the ground? So what else have we been trained to do besides....do what you know is right.
Do what you know is right.
It's a loaded sentence. Doing things can be hard for some people. Whether it be an actual motion, or a feeling. Forgiveness, cleaning, moving. You name it, the actually DOING it is what hinders people.
What you know? What DO you know? How can you take all your life experiences and plot them out in a concept map. How do you take the lessons and morals and values your parents instilled in you and make sense of them. How do you decide what you want your life story to hold, and what sort of guidelines you want to follow. So you can do basic algebra and have great grammar. You know that. But what else do you know? Can you die knowing forgiveness, love, hope, trust? Happiness, loss, failure, success? Do you know what it means to be a good person?
Right. Left. Wrong. Right. What can be constituted as 'right'? Everyone different, and has different things they know. So one person's right can be another person's wrong. I'm sure I do things others don't agree with, but I've seen things in others I don't necessarily agree with either.
So what do you do with that? How can you do what you know is right? Can you trust that doing what's right can ensure a better life? No rain, no rainbows, but can being a morally straight person set you up with a less stormy horizon?
In the story, the family did what they knew. They raised silkworms, and they took care of each other. They did their hardest to try and succeed, and to gain a reprieve from the poverty holding their throats. It didn't pan out though. They ended up farther in debt, with the whole village following down with them.
But they did what they knew to be right. And what more can you ask of a mortal being?
My parents did what they knew to be right. They've lived their lives and raised my brother and I to be strong, confident people. We have strong morals and convictions. Granted, we have our faults. Everyone does. But they did what they knew to be right, and set us up with the same mindset.
That's what my grandparents did for them as well. They did what they knew to be right, and lived it out. What more can you ask for? What more can you ask for besides a life that's as colorful as the Northern Lights. That you can look back on and be overall, pretty proud.
So. Life sucks and then you die. But that doesn't mean you can't live it as well as you can in between.
No comments:
Post a Comment