Two Faces, One Reality

Something must have went wrong.

Since when did we have gender test in Asian games? How does it feel like to fail a gender test? And what if your friend fails one? What will you say to comfort him that becomes her, or, vice versa?

On a journal, it says nanotechnology might cure brain cancer one day by isolating these cancer cells from nutrients.  Without damaging the smallest blood vessels, it can dry them inside. And right next to it is an article about somewhere on the other corner of the world, a nanotech weapon was invented. As it implies, "kills more efficiently".

What makes us so schizophrenic?

We are living in these extremes. Both the best and the worst may reveal one single truth : We are not satisfied. We want to attain something that we are not. So we cannot be happy. And we indulge ourselves in misery .

It will be shocking to calculate the dollars we spent on happiness. A Million Trillion annually? or more? The truth is crystal clear. We are far from happy. 

Same as every year, I was busy in this performance tour for cancer patients and the disabled. The best thing I can do.  And I always enjoyed the little chat after the show. Moments like this often surprise me.

A girl got her face burned and an arm gone in a fire when she was 14, now 22, helped out in the Show. She told me, "It's nothing." 

Nothing? For a girl fully aware of what it means to be pretty and then being loved from the TV?

She said to me, "You are beautiful. You are like a goddess when you dance." She talked enthusiastically, her body a bit trembled as she moved.  I tried so hard to hold my tears.

Another patient, at around 50, actually has pity on us so-called normal. "We don't have your worries." She has no question as to why life give her such a challenge.

I feel shameful. We project our own misery on them. But they see through our misery. How stupid we are to think we are doing something to the "less lucky" ones?

And they look far more normal than we do. They are happier then any person I meet everyday. Not just because we entertainment people are there.

We are in two worlds of the same reality.

I can never forget their spontaneous laughs.  Some people that I met here laughed at almost everything.

As for laughing, how long have we forget how to laugh? Children laugh 400 times a day. Average adult about 5 times. And we are losing 385 laughs everyday?

I always feel annoyed when my friends complaining about anything. They enjoy making themselves victims. Indeed, they are cunning. Since we have a big market of unhappiness, they trade misery for love and attention.

It's less likely for a boy to care about a girl when she is always happy and carefree. Is it an insult to a boyfriend when a girl seems to need nothing? I don't know. But that's what girls (or boys) do, they make themselves helpless and miserable.

But what about the 385 laughs?

I grew up in a traditional Chinese family. It is amazing to find out the most frequently used word of my parents to their kids is "NO". My childhood was filled with "NO, NO, NO" from parents and teachers (why can't they say "Yes, but..." instead?), a lot of times followed by a good beat up that leave bruises all over my body. And this is their idea of love.
 
Adults pass on their misery this way. From the very beginning, they said "NO" to happiness and pleasure. Somehow they are responsible for killing the child in us. Slowly, we all become cunning. We hold up our joy and blissfulness as a child to fit into their miserable life.

If we regard ourselves perfectly normal to be unhappy, which is one extreme, is it also normal for us to be happy, like the patients do? Is it a matter of perspective?

Or, are we going to learn to be happy only after we lose something or someone important to us?

What is life about? Are we really living?