Preface: The following passage may feel lengthy. It contains some of my reflections on philosophy, literature, and religion. In it, perhaps you can find a little of yourself. To be honest, I cannot make the distinction, because you and life itself are so alike. So I thought—why not simply write about life?
How should I describe a person? How should I describe you? I ask myself these questions. Yet I have no words, as if, when one is struck by the delicate chanting of the grassland, the depth of the soul beneath falling snow, the dazzling sunlight, and the equally dazzling death, one cannot recall a single metaphor, cannot remember a single verb.
What is the difference between a person and his thoughts? What is the distance between them? Every day, when I step out of any door in this building, I breathe deeply. I am frozen, but my soul breathes vibrantly. In that moment, there is no distance between me and the essence of life. I do not know how to depict you, because I do not know of anything that can be separated from life’s essence. No worldly standard can measure a human soul. Wordless teeth make a better sound; unwritten songs can praise a holier spring.
You are like a maple tree: I cannot see every leaf, but only the fire of their burning, as though my heart burns with them, never fully consumed. Sometimes wisdom is not seeing everything clearly, but sensing with a soul that longs for freedom, thinking with innocent, stripped pride. In that moment, life itself is a living being: it breathes, it moves, it occupies space. It murmurs softly, fanning its own wings in the breeze. It flows, needing no mark of time. It prays constantly, it blesses constantly. It will not die. It will never die. It recalls the voice of God, and with it we hear the voice of human wisdom, where philosophy and church are one.
How should I describe a leaf? How should I describe you?
Then close your eyes.
Close your eyes.
…
I like the word rest. The living can rest; the dead, not always. I bless the living with rest. I bless the dead with rest. I bless those who love me with rest. I bless those who do not love me with rest. True joy in this world is like rest: it erases the gap between life and death, it lifts you from a mortal body destined to perish, it makes you feel as if a beam of light pierces through clouds and fog to fall once more upon this suffering earth. It is inextinguishable. Though reason may grasp its fragility, your soul will sing of its eternity. At such a moment, what blessing do you think you are carrying? It is a blessing from the gods.
…
Amidst the noise, we once touched the essence of life, a thousand, ten thousand times.
So I wish you happiness and success, a thousand, ten thousand times.
2024.12.24