The Miracle of Life: Finding Meaning in the Ordinary
Life is a miracle in the universe, and its origin is mysterious and unpredictable. Is it a product of evolution, or a creation of God? It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to feel the miracle with your heart. Therefore, you will know how to appreciate the life phenomena in nature, and enrich your mind with their various forms.
Therefore, you will treat all life kindly, from every stranger, to an antelope, an insect, and a tree, and you will feel close to all things from the bottom of your heart. Then, you will have a kind of awe, reverence for life, and reverence for the Creator who created life, no matter people call it God or nature.
Love of life is the root of happiness, sympathy for life is the root of morality, reverence for life is the root of faith. The meaning of life is happiness at the secular level, morality at the social level, and faith at the transcendental level, all of which depend on the attitude towards life. Life is the basis and core of human existence.
What is the value of personal meritorious deeds and starting a business, getting rich and hunting for fame, if the result cannot make you settle down? What is the value of human beings governing the country with one family and striving for hegemony if the result cannot allow the people to live and work in peace and contentment? There is too much rational accumulation on things: words, concepts, opinions, evaluations, and so on. There is also too much social accumulation in life: wealth, power, status, fame and so on. Over time, accumulations replaced the body, forming an unbreakable false world.
When a person comes into the world, he is first of all a life. Life was originally simple. However, people’s lives are becoming more and more complicated. Many times, we are not living as beings, but as desires, ambitions, identities, titles, not for life, but for wealth, power, status, and fame. These social accumulations cover life, we regard them as more important than life, spend a lifetime of energy on it, and do not listen to and cannot hear the voice of life itself.
In human life, there are some things that are dispensable. Having them may add color, but not having them will not damage the essence. There are some things that are indispensable, and life will no longer be without them. No matter what anyone says is indispensable, nature is the only authority.
Nature stipulates that life cannot be separated from sunlight and land. The most basic content of life is the most ordinary, but it is they that constitute the eternal core of human life.
The basic core of human life is inherently mundane. War, politics, culture, wealth, adventure, romance, everything that is extraordinary, will return to ordinary in the end, and its value must be determined according to the merits and demerits of ordinary human life. Even in the lives of great men, we are most moved not by great achievements, but by those moments of true humanity in ordinary life, which are precisely the moments that we all have.
It is a pity that in today’s world, people are anxiously pursuing seemingly extraordinary things, and there are very few people who know how to cherish and taste ordinary life. Everything in the world is extraordinary, and it will return to ordinary in the end, and its value must be measured by ordinary life.
Greatness, splendor, and success are nothing. Only by living an ordinary life well can life be complete. In this world, sometimes it is unavoidable to ask others and do things against one’s will. But I believe that these can be reduced to a minimum by a man who will restrain his greed and content himself with a relatively simple life. It is really nothing to lose but to benefit from being away from these troublesome contacts and successes. We thus gain a good mood and a good time, which we can dedicate to the people we really like, to the things we are really interested in, and above all to ourselves.
For a person who is content with living a simple life, the boundaries of life are wider. When we were born into the world, who came with a name? And who came with a title, position, status, property, etc.? But as we grow up and sink deeper and deeper into mundane chores, few of us remember this simplest truth. We meet each other by names, and names are associated with titles, identities, possessions, etc., and as a result, life itself hides and even shrinks under the entanglement of these parasites. Whether for oneself or others, the sense of life is becoming increasingly paralyzed.
Most of the time, we just live in the world as a title. Even for couples who get along day and night, it is rare to treat each other in the natural state of life, and it is more of a kind of ethics and habit. In the vast universe, maybe only our planet has blossomed the flowers of life. However, on this lucky planet, there are exchanges of interests, status contests, property competitions, and the rarest thing is the encounter between life and life. . Think about it carefully, how we put the cart before the horse, betrayed the favor of nature because of small losses.
From the point of view of life, there are two disadvantages in the life of modern people. On the one hand, civilization has created more and more affluent material conditions for us, far exceeding the needs of sustaining life. The excess provides enjoyment, but at the same time complicates our way of life, which is far from the life in nature. The original state is getting farther and farther. On the other hand, the rich material conditions also make us easy to indulge in ease, lose the courage and strength to face great dangers, and become mediocre in spirit. Our life is far away from the limit state in both directions, without the endurance to bear the scarcity downward, and without the explosive force of challenging the danger upward, hiding in the comfortable and safe middle ground, the feeling is becoming more and more numb.
In the hustle and bustle of the city, the voice of life has been obscured for a long time, and no one pays attention to it. Let us all be quiet, and each of us listen to the inside of our body and mind, listen to what our life is saying, and think about what our life needs. What life needs is nothing more than air, sunshine, health, and nutrition, which are as ancient as this, ancient and ordinary. But, proud man, set aside your vanity and ambition, and you will know that the simplest enjoyments are the mellowest. Only one life is the most precious wealth in life, but many people would rather use it to exchange for those less precious or less precious wealth, and spend their whole life on the accumulation of knowledge, fame, power or money. When they die, they should regret like this: “I only used my life, but I didn’t enjoy it!”
A Western philosophy teaches us to seek pleasure and avoid pain. An Eastern religion teaches us to escape the cycle of pain and pleasure. However, people who really love life accept pain and happiness together.
Life fears monotony more than death, and that alone guarantees its invincibility. It must enrich itself in order to escape monotony, regardless of the futility of the ending. Life passed peacefully, without sound, without spray, not even a ripple, soundless. How I loathe this flat riverbed, it absorbs every feeling. Suddenly, encountering an obstacle, the reef rises, the wind is strong, and the waves are thrown. Am I alive? Yes, that’s when I feel like I’m alive. Whether there is a desire for love or not, and whether one can experience the joy of life is, in the final analysis, a matter of inner vitality.
