I just had a dream of China in 2028 and it was a beautiful vision. I thought of a metaphor:
an old man who has shed his skin, thrown away his cane and run a marathon. I felt the pain of shedding skin, the anxiety of throwing away the cane, the suffering of running mile after mile, the anger when some spectators jeered from the sidelines, the shame as your friends gave up and took the easy way out and the exhilaration of crossing the finish line as a reborn man.
i miss all ya’ll!
6 thoughts on “to my Chinese peoples”
oh man, but the exhilaration for that old man who threw away his cane and ran a marathon! for one who has felt so weary, that old man is your metaphor and you are now the reborn… re-energized, and some how recommitted to what matters to you..
it’s okay to miss those you love, especially if thinking about them makes you smile or laugh out loud (and thank god for cheap phone cards and skype!)
i think i might now who you are anon and i miss u too … if u are also the man who commented on “last transport” i hope you take my screaming with a dollop of honey … on one hand i wanna sit down with the greatest gen and their kids and be like “how’d it all come to this?” on the other hand i can’t be the superman my dad as always been yet … so the fact that you comment as you did shows you probably know what I’m thinking anyway:
get together with my dad, Uncle B and Granpa and find out what we can do together. I find i look back at my 20s and say: damn what a dumb kid. I wonder what I’ll say when im 40 about who I am now?
we have never met but our paths crossed through others.
yes, i commented on “last transport.” i don’t necessarily know what you’re thinking but i try to listen to the heart and to read what is written, to hear what isn’t said, to see what isn’t there – through these avenues real human connections are made – across borders, generations, and languages… keep writing (and screaming)… you keep others in touch with the pulse of young adults in today’s world.
BTW, if you are one day blessed with the gift of a child, your son or daughter will see you as a superman, too. and one day, if you and the rest of us are lucky, your child will pose questions to you about the world s/he inherits. the world requires the energy of each new generation. peace and dollops of honey are a given.
meant to say “read what isn’t written”
sigh. today i got all worked up again and sent out a mass email to a bunch of people to sign a petition to give 1 million USD to every citizen … my brian don’t work right sometimes. On one had i read Chomsky and Said talking about Intellectuals should do, then on the other hand i go down to Sizzler’s and see people just living life period.
and every generation has their moment when they think: hey wait a minute, maybe we should FIGHT against “all of this” and then later in life they realize they were fighting themselves. So when they see their kids doing what they did, they just nod, smile and wait for the realization to come.
There are instances like in Sichuan around the Ming, with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin and Genghis and Alexander when this rage against a calcified society became genocide. I think every young man feels this rage for a while. Then they have kids 😉
Agreed. However, every generation has the opportunity to push the envelope just a little bit further. It is the energy and idealism inherent in the young that pushes humankind. While wisdom that is honed over time is certainly valuable, this is no way detracts from the newness of youthful discovery. Questions that are asked by every generation have commonalities and so do the answers. We all want to know why we exist and what is the meaning of existence. But the discovery is new for each person asking the questions and seeking the answers. The gift that elders can share is to encourage, support, and help to develop that questioning process. BTW, this begins with parents shutting up and listening to their kids.
As one of those elders I can tell you that for me, I do watch for realization but try to use my abilities to help someone else explore that realization to the fullest. In this way, wisdom from experience can join youthful energy and zeal. It is one way to try to move the human race in a positive direction, one drop at a time.
And why struggle on with pondering the world? Chaim Potok in The Chosen spoke of just such a struggle when a father tells his son “I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. . . .”
Yes, every young man does feel this rage at some time and that rage can have an overwhelming intensity. But the young man who can harness the energy of that rage can truly live that span and, maybe, make our world a little better – even if it is only his own small corner of the globe. Such is the young man who can well be the superman for his own child, the rock for his family. peace