A few days ago, I stayed up late and suddenly sneezed loudly in the middle of the night. The next morning, I woke up feeling sick, with a sore throat. It has been uncomfortable ever since, and even today, my throat feels extremely dry and painful every morning. I cough up phlegm with traces of blood.
Today, we laid my grandmother to rest on the mountain, burying her alongside my grandfather. Huanhuan also came. Thankfully, I had taken Huanhuan to visit my grandmother while she was still alive. Looking back, that was an incredibly wise decision, even though her parents didn’t fully understand it at the time and were somewhat reluctant. We cannot truly know or understand a person through the black coffin. The beauty of life exists only when life is present.
I haven’t written in my diary for the past few days, and I don’t feel like trying to recall and fill in the gaps. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been sick, but I’ve been feeling especially tired lately, with dizzy eyes and a foggy mind.
As for my recent situation, it might make one feel helpless and lost. Work, studies, life, family, love, time, dreams—nothing seems to be going well, and it’s overwhelming. I think what we fear isn’t making choices, even if they turn out to be wrong. As long as we move forward with determination, even if we change direction, we’re still moving forward. Except for death, life has no endpoint.
I once compared our lives to the process of digestion. Whether we are apples, rice, eggs, beef, water, or something else, our birth is like entering the mouth of society. We are broken down, absorbed, and our value is revealed. When we no longer have value, we are expelled from this society.
It seems that’s how our lives end. But what choices do we have in this process? Upon closer thought, there are quite a few. From the moment we enter the mouth, we can choose to cling to the front teeth of society. We can become a fishbone stuck in society’s gums. Once in the stomach, if it feels unbearable, we can turn into watermelon or scalding hot pot oil to quickly end this painful process. We can even adopt a sacrificial approach, becoming something sweet like a sugary drink, giving our all to contribute, even if it means giving society diabetes or other illnesses.
Of course, these are just fantasies. Often, we can’t even decide what we are. Sometimes, society might not even want to consume us. Most food, without exception, has its nutrients absorbed and is then expelled. The good thing is that whatever consumes us has its own life—it gets sick, dies, and is broken down and absorbed. After we are expelled, even though our nutrients are gone, those nutrients were only valuable to the society that digested us. By leaving that society, we actually return to or enter a broader world, continuing the cycle of life.
If this is the truth of life, how should we choose to live it? Different people will give different answers, some of which may work temporarily. Transforming ourselves into something toxic, from the perspective of the ecosystem we’re part of, often doesn’t have much effect.
Perhaps the most positive and optimistic attitude is to view this process of digestion as a journey. Actively explore and observe, and see what an exquisite world our life has created and nurtured; it’s also fine to quietly complete this journey without any thought.