I remembered being in the same situation as the pilot’s when one evening as I was so entrenched with doing my homework in physics– having my back stressfully curved towards the table, my hands tightly gripped to the calculator which shows a four-digit value instead of the three-digit found in the answer key on the final pages of the physics book, and already stricken by the sophoriphic quietness of my room – my niece knocked on the door as enthusiastically as she usually does, then proudly showed me her drawing, which according to her is a castle, and pointed at the two stick-figures she referred to as her parents. I was really irritated being disturbed in the middle of an almost unbearable situation, hardly paying attention to the kid, and my response was a deliberate frown, a few nods and “uh-huh” sounds, brushing her out my room. I was right away back to my dealings with
Newton’s law, yet suddenly found myself having absolutely no idea what to do. I let out a sigh, dropped my pen, flexed my arms for a little while, then a whisper: matter of consequence. I felt pity for my niece for how I treated her and sadness for myself for forgetting the principles I should have lived with. These principles and ideologies, I learned them from reading great books or from some great people with great stories, or more importantly, I learned them by myself from my own experiences. It’s really a sad thing, a disappointing one, to find one’s self again in a slate- an empty slate, or worse a grimy slate. How often do I spend my time reading and reading, then writing and writing, then speaking and speaking about life’s ideals, should-be’s, essentials and ending up not seeing them in myself. I let go of them because of some certain situations I deem to be inevitable and beyond my control. I forget them because the inner animal in me is something more real. I am sad and ruined by this reality – that I am not what I should be. Am I just creating my own psychological horror?
I would want to stop for a while and survey the life that I am living, to look at other people, to hear their stories, to love and love and live. (Auden must be right: Love or perish!)
If I would only will in my heart…. Things are beyond possibility.
* The little price told the pilot:”I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: ‘I am busy with matters of consequence!’ - Le Petite Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(Written 9:20PM 21 Dec 2005 qc. Pic source: snoot.org)
