To make yourself usable
I want to try making my life into something beautiful.
I think I've always known and feared what the future can hold. Some people have seen opportunities ready for harvest, but I have most commonly seen uncertainty, and suffering, and an unlit path. Upon reflection, I don't like reading fiction set in our world primarily because it makes me feel the futility of life. While in Hong Kong, I read two books that reminded me of this: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Dorian Gray is a captivating picture of how a man murders his conscience and thus, himself. We meet Dorian when he is young and unassuming. But Dorian's life was changed when he perceived his own beauty, when an artist who loved him painted him as the artist saw him. In a moment, Dorian Gray became so captivated by the beauty he possessed that he thought it could be his everything. His beauty served as the glamour he pulled over his own eyes. It allowed him to ignore the condition of his soul. The book has thought-provoking ideas, from Lord Henry especially. It really was quite amazing.
Meanwhile, Tess of the d'Urbervilles gave her life away to a blinded love. She was steady and virtuous in her love, as trusting and selfless as would have been required of both parties in the most perfect of unions. She would have been the flawless heroine - but she ended up hung as a murderer, because the hero wasn't as heroic as he should have been. He was stupid enough to act on ideas which he himself had rejected and to judge her based on that, and to abandon her, instead of protecting her. And she trusted him so much that she accepted it as her due punishment. Although she was well-meaning and pure, her mistake was to let her life be decided by and indeed revolve around this man whom she idolised, when he was only a human.
I also recently read Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield makes you just want to give him a hug and tell him everything will be alright. He wants to save, but not everything wants to be saved by him, nor does he necessarily have the unique ability to save anything in particular. Even though he wants to save, he can't appreciate for himself the beauty of the world around him. He's lost in the past, and he sabotages himself when he judges others brutally in an attempt to keep himself clean of what he sees in them as compromising. But because he judges them, he can't engage with them on the same level or save them at all.
The saddest part of this story is how the book parallels Salinger's life. The way he caught himself up in many religions, trying to find something that would satisfy him, something that he could live maturely and humbly for. A while ago, I blogged a review of the movie Up that alluded to how mankind views children as things that must be carefully preserved and nurtured until they are adult. But people might not realise that life is a continual growing process. They might not realise that as a child should be treated with love and affection, so should everyone else. They mightn't realise that when a child smiles, and when an adult smiles, there is the same valuable precociousness in both of them.
From his many pieces about children and the way he had relationships with women only below a certain age and even encouraged them not to graduate, it appears that Salinger never saw past that obvious charm of the innocence of childhood. He never went on to treasure how it is beautiful to nurture people past that stage, into the fulfillment of all the promises that childhood intimated. By keeping his focus on preserving childhood, Salinger failed to preserve it and failed to see how adults, as compromised as they are and as much as they have realised and are tempted by the forces of evil around them, can be as worthy with just a little more work.
I don't know. Reading all these books makes me realise all the more how life can slip by without you noticing, and spiral away from you. Everyone becomes fixated and finds a way to define their world, like the characters above, but make sure you know for sure what you are fixated on.
So if my life spirals, let it be at least be in the pursuit of truth.
I don't want my life to be futile. I don't want to die not having learnt to live by what I have learnt. Instead, I want to know why I'm doing things, and seek out the truth. I want my life to be a constant struggle of worship of what is true of the universe, and I want to edify my answer with the sacrifice of my life. The story of Faust... I want to be like him, to quest for the truth and to finally know my God, even if it has to be through and after failures. Which is part of why I so identify with Roy Khan, because I believe that he is living his truth. He left Kamelot to be with his family because he doesn't want to stay on for something that doesn't satisfy him. He would rather disappoint his fans, give up his career, and so give up on reliving all the hopelessness that Kamelot has indulged in in its songs, so that he can start with his rebirth.
You know how they say that imitation is the best form of flattery? I believe that I want to make my life into a repayment of those who have loved me and inspired me. This is because I agree; I believe that the more you admire those mythical people in books or in real life, the more you should seek to live as them in real life. What worth is admiration when the admirer qualifies: it's all well and good in a story or other people but not for me? You can't say, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever felt before but not try to emulate it, really you can't. The sort of admiration that would be is a very weak sort. You must extract what has been beautiful to you, and then apply it in an altered and practical way (which is allowed, so that you don't say you don't do it only because it isn't practical). And if you have benefited from the selfless love of others, you can only fully repay them by molding your life to attempt to love as selflessly, though you well know the fact that you are an adult human: an unwieldly and evil-perceiving and contradictory-flesh-limited tool.
So far in my life, only Jesus has inspired me to live out my whole life as a tribute to him. Only God can inspire me so much that I should wish that I will actually use my life in following him at any cost. He has warned that "even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed; for it is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil." (1 Peter)
My little ephemeral and inconsequential flower-life is all I can give, and I wish to give it with God's help, because I believe this is true good and beauty, that this is life, fully encapsulating the thriving of the word life.
I think I've always known and feared what the future can hold. Some people have seen opportunities ready for harvest, but I have most commonly seen uncertainty, and suffering, and an unlit path. Upon reflection, I don't like reading fiction set in our world primarily because it makes me feel the futility of life. While in Hong Kong, I read two books that reminded me of this: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Dorian Gray is a captivating picture of how a man murders his conscience and thus, himself. We meet Dorian when he is young and unassuming. But Dorian's life was changed when he perceived his own beauty, when an artist who loved him painted him as the artist saw him. In a moment, Dorian Gray became so captivated by the beauty he possessed that he thought it could be his everything. His beauty served as the glamour he pulled over his own eyes. It allowed him to ignore the condition of his soul. The book has thought-provoking ideas, from Lord Henry especially. It really was quite amazing.
Meanwhile, Tess of the d'Urbervilles gave her life away to a blinded love. She was steady and virtuous in her love, as trusting and selfless as would have been required of both parties in the most perfect of unions. She would have been the flawless heroine - but she ended up hung as a murderer, because the hero wasn't as heroic as he should have been. He was stupid enough to act on ideas which he himself had rejected and to judge her based on that, and to abandon her, instead of protecting her. And she trusted him so much that she accepted it as her due punishment. Although she was well-meaning and pure, her mistake was to let her life be decided by and indeed revolve around this man whom she idolised, when he was only a human.
I also recently read Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield makes you just want to give him a hug and tell him everything will be alright. He wants to save, but not everything wants to be saved by him, nor does he necessarily have the unique ability to save anything in particular. Even though he wants to save, he can't appreciate for himself the beauty of the world around him. He's lost in the past, and he sabotages himself when he judges others brutally in an attempt to keep himself clean of what he sees in them as compromising. But because he judges them, he can't engage with them on the same level or save them at all.
The saddest part of this story is how the book parallels Salinger's life. The way he caught himself up in many religions, trying to find something that would satisfy him, something that he could live maturely and humbly for. A while ago, I blogged a review of the movie Up that alluded to how mankind views children as things that must be carefully preserved and nurtured until they are adult. But people might not realise that life is a continual growing process. They might not realise that as a child should be treated with love and affection, so should everyone else. They mightn't realise that when a child smiles, and when an adult smiles, there is the same valuable precociousness in both of them.
From his many pieces about children and the way he had relationships with women only below a certain age and even encouraged them not to graduate, it appears that Salinger never saw past that obvious charm of the innocence of childhood. He never went on to treasure how it is beautiful to nurture people past that stage, into the fulfillment of all the promises that childhood intimated. By keeping his focus on preserving childhood, Salinger failed to preserve it and failed to see how adults, as compromised as they are and as much as they have realised and are tempted by the forces of evil around them, can be as worthy with just a little more work.
I don't know. Reading all these books makes me realise all the more how life can slip by without you noticing, and spiral away from you. Everyone becomes fixated and finds a way to define their world, like the characters above, but make sure you know for sure what you are fixated on.
So if my life spirals, let it be at least be in the pursuit of truth.
I don't want my life to be futile. I don't want to die not having learnt to live by what I have learnt. Instead, I want to know why I'm doing things, and seek out the truth. I want my life to be a constant struggle of worship of what is true of the universe, and I want to edify my answer with the sacrifice of my life. The story of Faust... I want to be like him, to quest for the truth and to finally know my God, even if it has to be through and after failures. Which is part of why I so identify with Roy Khan, because I believe that he is living his truth. He left Kamelot to be with his family because he doesn't want to stay on for something that doesn't satisfy him. He would rather disappoint his fans, give up his career, and so give up on reliving all the hopelessness that Kamelot has indulged in in its songs, so that he can start with his rebirth.
You know how they say that imitation is the best form of flattery? I believe that I want to make my life into a repayment of those who have loved me and inspired me. This is because I agree; I believe that the more you admire those mythical people in books or in real life, the more you should seek to live as them in real life. What worth is admiration when the admirer qualifies: it's all well and good in a story or other people but not for me? You can't say, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever felt before but not try to emulate it, really you can't. The sort of admiration that would be is a very weak sort. You must extract what has been beautiful to you, and then apply it in an altered and practical way (which is allowed, so that you don't say you don't do it only because it isn't practical). And if you have benefited from the selfless love of others, you can only fully repay them by molding your life to attempt to love as selflessly, though you well know the fact that you are an adult human: an unwieldly and evil-perceiving and contradictory-flesh-limited tool.
So far in my life, only Jesus has inspired me to live out my whole life as a tribute to him. Only God can inspire me so much that I should wish that I will actually use my life in following him at any cost. He has warned that "even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed; for it is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil." (1 Peter)
My little ephemeral and inconsequential flower-life is all I can give, and I wish to give it with God's help, because I believe this is true good and beauty, that this is life, fully encapsulating the thriving of the word life.
hey i read catcher in the rye too! though quite long ago, a year ago... yea i agree, holden misses the beauty of the world (new york for that matter)... I could feel the energy of new york from reading the book, same as the energy i derive from watching movies and shows, though I haven't been there before..
Posted by
The.David.Lee |
10:14 pm
That is quite cool - I didn't pick up on the same energy of New York (though I do see it now that I think about it), and think it might have to do with the introvert/extrovert difference between us. :)
Posted by
theodora avian |
8:02 pm
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