My OperaLittle unknown, quo vadis?
Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:05:51 PM
These few days passed with little internet access and almost no instant messages. I’d have to admit that life without them has been quite constructive; now I see the reason why my little boy refuses to IM and am thinking whether I can also quit it completely. Busy as I should be, I have had plenty of blank time and space to reflect on myself – and no, not the kind of reflection we had had in random Tuesday afternoons last semester <inside joke for my schoolmates.>
I have figured out what I would like to do.
It just suddenly became clear to me after I read an article (link) about some Vietnamese fishermen lost (and maybe dead) in the sea and how their families were those days, as Lunar New Year is approaching. Before that, I spent six continuous hours rehearsing, three with Los Escarabajos and three with Edgardo, Tanya, Bilsana, and Ksusha. Overall, I realized a couple of things:
Thing 1: Knowledge is useless unless we can do something useful with it. So to me, it no longer makes sense to watch The pianist or Grave of the fireflies just to shiver at the cruelty or to weep at the grief. It makes no sense for me to browse VNN everyday and read successive news about my countrymen’s listlessness, immorality, or pragmatism, just for the sake of entertainment and gossiping. What’s the point of continuing reading or knowing if I’m not doing anything about it? I’d rather be one of the “ignorant happy people” and live my ignorant life happily, or I’d rather forget about the shortness of life and do what I’ve learned says I should do. I don’t want to be anything in between – it’ hard to be. It hurts.
Thing 2: But sadly, ignorance can never be regained.
Thing 3: Music, mathematics, and physics may not help for this purpose, but are what I personally like. Considering my limited time, during the last whole year I had constantly searched for a compromise between this and my ideology of what should be done - and this had also been the reason for my answer "I don't know" to the question of what I want to study in college.
Thing 4: <Someone>'s saying: The only way to "help the world" is to do it one person at a time. There, with my harmonica and my backpack, I want to travel. It doesn't actually matter where I'm traveling too. It doesn't really make a difference. Wherever between the sky and the ground, wherever there are people, I want to be there.
Thing 5: I love the small town where I had grown up. No matter where I go, once in a while, and eventually, I will come back to it.
I have figured out what I would like to do.
It just suddenly became clear to me after I read an article (link) about some Vietnamese fishermen lost (and maybe dead) in the sea and how their families were those days, as Lunar New Year is approaching. Before that, I spent six continuous hours rehearsing, three with Los Escarabajos and three with Edgardo, Tanya, Bilsana, and Ksusha. Overall, I realized a couple of things:
Thing 1: Knowledge is useless unless we can do something useful with it. So to me, it no longer makes sense to watch The pianist or Grave of the fireflies just to shiver at the cruelty or to weep at the grief. It makes no sense for me to browse VNN everyday and read successive news about my countrymen’s listlessness, immorality, or pragmatism, just for the sake of entertainment and gossiping. What’s the point of continuing reading or knowing if I’m not doing anything about it? I’d rather be one of the “ignorant happy people” and live my ignorant life happily, or I’d rather forget about the shortness of life and do what I’ve learned says I should do. I don’t want to be anything in between – it’ hard to be. It hurts.
Thing 2: But sadly, ignorance can never be regained.
Thing 3: Music, mathematics, and physics may not help for this purpose, but are what I personally like. Considering my limited time, during the last whole year I had constantly searched for a compromise between this and my ideology of what should be done - and this had also been the reason for my answer "I don't know" to the question of what I want to study in college.
Thing 4: <Someone>'s saying: The only way to "help the world" is to do it one person at a time. There, with my harmonica and my backpack, I want to travel. It doesn't actually matter where I'm traveling too. It doesn't really make a difference. Wherever between the sky and the ground, wherever there are people, I want to be there.
Thing 5: I love the small town where I had grown up. No matter where I go, once in a while, and eventually, I will come back to it.
