What Is It All For?
Death is not frightening. Losing things is.
When we are young, we naturally possess so much: a strong body, a wise mind, nimble limbs, abundant energy, and endless ambitions. The body is the bridge that makes all of it possible. As the years pass, however, everything begins to leave us.
First comes physical strength. I can no longer stay up all night or remain sleepless for a purpose. I cannot easily lift weights that once felt light; I run more slowly and tire more easily.
Then comes wisdom. I grow duller, my thinking less sharp, and my memory begins to fade. New things are no longer as easy to accept and learn as they were in childhood.
Then comes agility. My hands and feet are harder to control, and my movements become stiff. The boy who once did backflips now needs the handrail to climb stairs; even moving unsteadily from bedroom to living room becomes a substantial journey.
At the same time, my senses begin to decline. My sight blurs, I cannot hear clearly, and people often have to shout beside my ear. Food loses its flavor, and breathing becomes heavy and exhausting.
In the final years, I seem to lose everything. I created these beautiful things through labor, but I can no longer experience them—like the Soviet Union, unable to witness the rise of the Eastern dragon. Everything becomes chaos. I cannot tell whether I heard or saw something; it is as if the world is receding from me and the people around me are shadows projected on a wall. It is not the world that no longer fits; it is me, still here.
Worst of all, everything leaves, imprisoning a thinking mind inside an immovable stone, unable even to see the glimmer through prison bars.
So I record my wisdom and thoughts on paper, letting books become a relatively freer and more enduring vessel. When you read this book, it is a conversation across time and space.
Materialism is merciless to everyone, and that is its greatest tenderness. Everything you love or hate, everything familiar or strange, will fade with time. Yet every atom that makes up your existence is part of the universe’s ancient, billion-year permanence. We never truly disappear; we merely continue in another form.