Autumn is the year’s third season. In life, by the time we
enter our autumn, we have already passed our peak. Autumn represents the harvest. Once the crops have been taken in, we
must bid that bountiful season goodbye. Thereafter, our life shrinks—the further ahead we march, the narrower our life
becomes. As Li Shang-yin’s poem says, “The setting sun is
beautiful, but twilight’s drawing nigh.”
We begin life owning only our naked bodies. It is our parents
who raise us, feeding us, clothing us, and giving us names.
After a time, we leave the cradle, learn to walk, to read and to
write. We start with nothing, but, as we mature, we begin to
think, gradually developing our own personalities and perspectives on life. In our youth, the whole human world is fresh and new. We seek and seek and seek. . . . We seek everything, tan gible and intangible, aspiring to a spiritual life while also desiring the material. We want wealth and fame. Nice foods, nice clothing, a nice place to live—these too we fantasize about during the day and dream about at night. We wish for at least three things every day. We desire distant places, and want the very light!
Young people all drape themselves in the trappings of desire. Their eyes wide, they look at the possessions of their peers and wonder, “Why does everyone but me have such nice things?” So they study hard in the hope that good grades will lead to scholarships, to study abroad, and to a good job when they return. They hope that everything from there on out will be smooth sailing, that they’ll live an ideal life. Others have no desire for the ordinary struggle-filled path to success— Bachelor’s Degree to Master’s Degree to Doctorate. . . . It’s too long and exhausting a road to travel. Instead, they elect to go against the grain, to make their living where there’s fun and wine aplenty, to seek out a degenerate happiness. Sometimes, such degeneracy allows young people to accumulate wealth rapidly. But money is a strange beast—when it comes easily, it goes quickly. Many “high-class” prostitutes and gigolos, those who earn their livings with their bodies, find their pockets empty the moment their looks are gone. At that point, they can only sigh that their youth has passed. Truly, our youth is like a river flowing eastward to the sea; its bounty, once gone, never returns.
We are too pessimistic. In principle, our youths are spent racing to get ahead. For the vast majority of us, as we get older, we possess and possess. . . . We possess more and more things. During our prime, we excel at extending our domains, creating a name for ourselves and building our wealth. Ours is a water caltrop- shaped life, big in the center, smaller at the ends. We swim out of our small streams into life’s river, immediately turning upstream against the current. We’re like country folk just arrived in the city exclaiming, “Lordy!” as the skyscrapers draw our eyes inexorably to the heavens. But after a time we find we’re living in a skyscraper ourselves, or have even become skyscraper landlords. Fate is a strange thing. These days, we’re all urbanites. We’ve become completely cosmopolitan, mastering the stock market, playing the Lothario, calling all the shots. . . . The whole world appears to be ours, from the eastern hemisphere to the western. Sometimes in New York, other times in Paris, we check in and out of five-star hotels, eat the finest of foods, trade in our cars for newer and still newer models. Ours is such a fashionable life!
At first we were pessimistic, but now we’ve become too optimistic. Life doesn’t go so smoothly. Suppose we’ve reached life’s highpoint—let’s call 40 the watershed—the majority of 40 year-olds might have their own home, their own car, but are still working themselves to the bone from nine to five. Suppose some of these folks have become bosses. But a boss works harder than his employees, for he has not only to deal with his customers, but also to keep an eye on his suppliers and staff. There’s tumult everywhere in life. The highpoint of this water caltrop-shaped life of ours is only the halfway point, even if we’ve achieved both spiritual and material success. It is a point at which we can finally take a breath, have a little rest now and then, but no more than that!
Spring is so very brief. Its swallows have hardly arrived before they’ve soared off again. Ferocious summer soon rushes
in, its rage but a moment’s deluge in a long yet all-too-fleeting human life. We spend half a lifetime training our bodies—how can they just shrivel away? A strapping man in his prime looks as if he could take on the world single-handedly. You’d think he
wouldn’t fear any hardship, that he could bear the wind and the
frost, the rain and the dew, without batting an eye. But then an
old man, bent and stooped, passes before your eyes, a cane in
hand. Good Lord! Time has spirited away the strength and
vigor he had only yesterday. Even ferocious summer slips away
without a trace, . . . .
*From Chen Fang - ming 陳芳明 ed. Chiu - shih - san nien san - wen - hsuan《 十六棵玫瑰 》( Collected Essays 2004 ), Taipei : Chiuko Publishing, 2005. |
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