08/12/2025 Tuesday 66-91F Sunny
A couple of days ago, I met a friend.
We sat at the riverbank, watching a group of ducks swimming.
“I grew up at the seaside.” He said, “When the weather was good, every fisherman would go out to catch fish; even the less skilled ones could get a good load. But when it was about to rain or a stormy day, people stayed home. We all need to be practical, know who we are. Then life will be easier.”
“Working in a company is much more secure than running your own business.” he said.
“Because you are a Chinese; you have a Chinese face, therefore you should do something that relates to Chinese; something typical that people expect a Chinese would do. You have no advantage if you compete with westerners.” he said.
“If you do business, you should do the ones targeting the massive market like all the others are doing.” he said again.
……
I didn’t know what to say, because he also said, “Don’t deny; it’s just your self-defense.”
I appreciated his honesty, and him being straightforward as a friend. Eventually on the way driving back, I murmured: “To live is not enough. We should have dreams.”
He perhaps heard me since he remained silent until we arrived home.
So when we talk about happiness, how do we define it? Living a more secured but compromising life? Or being on the journey to your dream even if it looks far and high and perhaps you will never get it? At the end of the movie “Papillon (1973)”, Degas said: “You will be killed. You know that.” “Maybe.” Was Papillon’s answer. “Please, don’t do it.” Papillon responded to his friend with a hug, then jumped off the cliff. To Papillon, being a free man was his dream; while to Degas, staying on the island raising his pigs and cultivating his garden without any disturbance was his practical choice.
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche.
Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. As long as our flesh and bones can stand, we should always be on our way to pursue happiness, or our dreams.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Nietzsche also said.
This morning, I sat on the porch looking at a tall tree growing opposite my house. I remembered that when we first moved here, part of its trunk was covered with ivy. I ripped off the ivy and dug up the roots. The ivy never came back; the tree grew taller and happier. I read somewhere that not every branch of a tree ought to grow upright; some grow sidewards in order to get more sun. So I examined the tree—indeed the branches grew all the ways which gave the tree a full, fluffy look. Suppose if everyone wanted to reach the highest point, what would happen? Overcrowded, red ocean, zero-sum game.
Instead of facing our problems head-on; we like finding sideways which we believe can help us solve the issues:
“Sometimes I feel lonely.” “Find yourself a wife.”
“My marriage is pretty boring.” “Why not have a child?”
“What a mess about my life!” “Everything will be alright once the child grows up.”
“When can I live the way I want?” “Perhaps after your retirement.”
Very soon we will retire; even decades can pass like a wink. When we look back, what will we say about our lives? What makes me fear the most is an empty life; a life I never lived on my own.
Traveling back from Long Island via Brooklyn, we have to travel on the Belt Parkway which is the worst part of the route. Looking at the crawling cars moving slowly ahead of us, I start to think philosophically again: “In fact, the background color of everyone’s life is dark.” I say to my husband, “Because we were brought to this world by others’ will, and death is our only destination. Then we start to apply colors onto the canvas of our lives, layer by layer, year after year. Finally, one day, someone successfully covers his dark background color with other more beautiful colors; while someone makes it worse. But no matter what we have done with it, the dark background color is still there; it didn’t disappear, it is just hidden…”
Before I finish my long statement, a seagull passes by, shits right by my hand on the handle (we let our convertible top down). “Pure luck!” I complain, looking for tissue to wipe it off.
“Do you know why the seagull shit on you? It was saying ‘bullshit’ to what you just said.” My husband chuckles.
Well, I guess he is right. I tend to think too much 🥵.
