The Meaning Of Life

Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay

I don’t have anything to write today since during the day, I wrote thousands of words of correspondence to give opinions about a resume, a powerpoint, a self portrayal, a portfolio, a letter, together with a list of my suggestions. All the time, I was afraid that I was too “harsh” and too “blunt” in expressing myself, which might be misinterpreted as being negative and judgemental.

Anyway, I inserted in the beginning and at the end servile phrases like “please forgive me for saying so” or “I am not trying to censure you” or “don’t blame me for expressing my honest opinion.” Somehow I felt that I must have violated a number of unwritten rules of English writing, among which subtlety seems to be the most important one. And it is this requirement for subtlety that throws me off balance many times. I just don’t feel that I have a good grasp of it. I am either too reserved or too blunt; either not expressing enough to disappoint myself or expressing too much to make myself guilty.

Anyway, I remember reading a short story by Saki, titled “Down Pens”, in which a couple are tired of writing thank you letters for the holiday gifts they have received. Each has written 11 letters and each has written himself or herself out. So I found and reread the short story on my Kindle Fire, but I didn’t feel the same delight as I was reading it the first time. I used to like this story and it really made a good impression on me, judging from the fact that I still remember it after about ten years. Well, I don’t feel I like the story anymore. How weird?

Well, I can’t finish “A Tale Of Two Cousins”, but I really wish it is over by now. I tried to finish it off, but each time, it laughs at my resolve and shows me its staying power. I tried to write something good, but it ends up neither funny nor witty, neither dramatic nor emotional, neither thrilling nor bloody? Well, understanding one’s limitation gives one no comfort since one doesn’t know how to make improvement, how to get out of it. One still has to live with oneself at the end of the day.

I pick up “What We All Long For” by Dionne Brand and read page 19, which I highlighted all over. It is a story about four young second-generation immigrants from Toronto–they are Asian, Black, biracial etc. “They couldn’t wait to get out of school, where they had very early realized, as early as grade three, that nothing there was about them. Their parents didn’t understand anything. They abandoned them to the rough public terrain that they themselves couldn’t handle but out of which they expected their children to emerge with good grades and well adjusted. So they settled in as mainly spectators to the white kids in the class.”

I watched a video, in which people gorge themselves on endless display of food, another one about a person judging other people’s cooking videos, and another one with a Japanese women escaping a Komodo dragon in a game show. I don’t feel like any of these, which I used to enjoy.

Talk to a friend on phone. I was told that two young people, whom we know, went to graduate school to become physician assistants, which has a good job market, giving the fact that more and more baby boomers are retiring right now.

It’s the end of the day. I am waiting for the new Wordle to come up and then I will go to bed. However, the phrase “nothing there was about them” etches in my mind. Am I reading, writing, thinking, caring about something that has nothing to do with me? Am I working only to satisfy the monthly payment? I hope my existence is not so meaningless. I did help people in my little insignificant ways, however this contribution seems to be a side effect of my desire to pay my bills…