Tuesday 13 November 2007

Moving with the Currents


The following passage is taken from the book 'Memoirs of a Geisha' by Arthur Golden. The metaphor 'leapt' out at me - so to speak, when I first read it. I understand immediately that in life, sometimes we don't have control over certain things that happened to us. Under such circumstances, the best we can do is to accept the situation as 'one of those things in life', and move on.

"We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we have played, it is perfectly clear that we are affected everyday by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them."


Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. - Orson Scott Card

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talking of metaphors Joseph Priestly has a nice definition ---
"a simile contracted to its smallest dimensions"

After reading the last paragraph of "Moving with the Currents" I suddenly thought ----just how many of my actions over a day have created a change in the destiny/fate of so many things surrounding me??? I wonder.
I must investigate Buddhism!!!!!

Vincent you are really getting into "deep"thinkings. Keep it up!

Vincent said...

Thank you for your comment and encouragement.