Choosing the Way to Die

During the funeral of my grandfather, I asked a doctor at presence why it is so different between China and the western that it is so rare for those doctors in the west to choose further treatment when they are facing incurable diseases, while in China that is sometimes not even an option.

He chuckled and gave me two reasons that stopped most domestic doctors from choosing their way of ending. For one, it is the cliched emotional bondage between people. The other reason, however, is religious. Since there are quite many western doctors believe in Christian, and the doctors are widely acknowledged as the assistants of Jesus. This factor alone gave the doctors a lot more freedom to state their wishes on various occasions, allowing them to make their choice of life and death. But if you put the same issue in the context of China, the rightful power to decide one’s fate is virtually held by one’s family. There are way too many interests and sentiments involved, therefore, it is not possible to make the most rational decision each time.

In this world, I do not understand why we live.

It is true that it is ubiquitous to find meaning of life. People have been using all kinds of methods, like friendship or love, to try to create the connection between their souls and the world. People get themselves familiar with all different kinds of (weird) rules in the society in order to leave behind some marks in varied ways, influencing people around and saving our material or spiritual properties for our heirs.

But more we see, really, is how people have been so stressed as they grow up until they have formed their values and what they believe without knowing their true passion and love. In other words, people do not often have the constructive hobbies that will keep them so awake during late nights. Most people are just accepting passively what their environment has been attaching onto them. Gradually, they are decided what to love, to pursue and to be interested in. The system made the choices for them and made up their values and thinking methods, the most are successfully moulded into the standards.

So, I think the reason that those so-called sensitive ones who can easily see through others is not how special they are, but they are just quite familiar with how people should be like in the society in the first place.

Pathetic.

When I get old, no matter what, I would not give away my right to decide my own fate. Never should I be one of those in the sickbeds hopelessly and gradually losing their dignity and approaching the death – this for me is far from a proper way to say goodbye to my beloved ones.

The borderline between life and death is merely in one breath. The thing that one could not let go could be the deepest fear of loneliness instead of others.

We, from the start to the end, has never not been solitary.

While, no matter when and where, I never felt any bit of belongingness from the beginning of the story –

I was within and without.

Admit it, you are just like me, we have only loved ourselves. But I feel no guilty about it, for me it’s the most fundamental as an individual. The real normality of life is, when you stand right in front of someone else, you feel that you can see through the other from any possible aspect, while the other felt so very strongly that you are a pure mystery to him.

The reason we fight and strive, is to earn us the right to choose our own fate and destiny. Forget about the great party and people –

After all, each and every one of us has just been the mud bodhisattva crossing the river.