Read the previous post first!
Thanks for reading my last post, and the great feedback many of you gave me. It gives me a little bit of motivation to keep writing, however sporadically. I know I didn't expound on a lot of terms in the last post - what 'reminders of mortality' and 'spiritually nourishing' really mean to me. But it was an intentional choice that quite reflected my state of mind at the point of writing (something that I find myself leaning towards more and more). To keep the writing true to myself, I actually prefer writing posts in a single sitting. I often find it difficult to continue a draft after some time; in fact, I have 8 drafts currently, some of which I haven't added a new word in over 6 months (hopefully I eventually get to them!). Inspiration is a tricky thing. Anyway, I digress.
So let's fill you in with more context here: over the Chinese New Year celebrations here in SG, one of my aunts had such severe knee pain (cartilage wearing off) that she couldn't even walk 500m to get herself some food. Another uncle was hospitalised because he fainted while at work (he drives MRT trains). Turns out he was getting multiple panic attacks a day, and was probably over-stressed over the years from life. It made me really sad, seeing how people around me were all growing old and weaker (my parents included). This was what I was talking to Juan about and where he brought up the sentence, "Reminders of mortality are spirtually nourishing in the right dose, but too much and it's taxing."
For most of human history, death rates were much higher and it was something where people would be much more accustomed too. Not that it would have been less painful, but perhaps seeing much more of death made it easier for people (and communities) to deal with. In the words of my friend Eric "Back in Victorian England, you'd have plenty just by watching 12 of your siblings die before you turned 10 or watching a chimney sweep fall off the roof". Sounds a bit morbid, I know. But that's what makes living in the 21st century so different, and honestly (relatively) fortunate. Does being ill-accustomed to death, and other signs of mortality make it harder for us to cope with? Perhaps the rituals around death are no longer practised that rigourously, which were the main coping mechanism among communities (I won't go into too much detail here; rituals are a fascinating study and obsession among anthropologists, go read if you're keen).
"Spirtually nourishing" is a much more difficult term to explain here. What I felt, and wrote in the last post probably exemplified it for me the most clearly. But let me try and spell it out. Spirituality, to me, is about finding what it means to be human. To nourish my own 'spirit', well, would be to feel human again. To reignite that deep inner sense of the human psyche. Science can't exactly quantify this. It just is there, within us all. We might experience it differently, but we feel alive. I'm sure you've all had moments like this where you experience something and just feel 'it's great to be alive'.
Being exposed to the darkness made me feel small, in this whole universe out there. Yet, I felt alive. My senses were sharp. I could feel my heart beating so clearly, I wonder if other animals could hear it. This fear - a reminder of mortality - made me uncomfortable, but this very feeling was akin to someone playing the lowest and highest C on the piano. It seldom gets played, but yet resonated so deeply into my soul. And that experience was what spurred me to write the last post.
I've recently come to learn of and appreciate this poem by Su Dongpo a lot: 定风波 (this link provides an english translation too), in particular the line 一蓑烟雨任平生. It's not exactly about mortality or nourishing the soul, but the idea of finding inner peace starting with yourself. I don't necessarily agree with all of the Buddhist and Taoist teachings of letting go of everything on this earth, but one of the most important lessons is to care less about things out of our control.
I'm out of words here, so I'll end it here instead of saving it as yet another draft. Maybe I'll edit more if I ever feel like it. But thanks for reading as always.
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Music of choice: Animenz in the pool , on loop
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