Life, Enduring, Enduring!
The Tunnel of Life.
I remember it very, very clearly, that morning in New Delhi, India. The sunrise pierced through the thin curtains, spreading a golden and gentle expanse across the table in the hostel. On the table lay a large, round Indian pancake, like a drum, and I slowly tore it apart with my hands while idly browsing the New Delhi newspaper of the day. As my eyes darted left and right, up and down, scanning the various headlines, a news story, unremarkable but strangely unsettling, suddenly seized my attention.
The story was: A man from India, tormented by extreme poverty, lay beside the train tracks, his arm rigidly placed on the tracks, allowing the speeding train to brutally crush his arm, in order to increase his 'price' for begging in the future.
After reading it, cold sweat poured down.
To satisfy hunger by inflicting such brutal self-harm, is there anything more tragic than this? Such a 'desperate attempt to survive' is how heartbreaking.
Recently, I've seen repeatedly in Singapore, people jumping onto subway tracks committing suicide, amidst the sighs and exclamations, I couldn't help but recall the news story I read during my trip to India many years ago. When compared, I suddenly realized that the person who severed his arm on the tracks, no matter how many criticisms he deserved, we couldn't deny that his 'willingness to die' reflected his hidden strength.
Suicides often have one thousand and one reasons to end their lives, and every suicide victim firmly believes they have reached a 'road with no turning back,' and in this blind spot, they themselves tore up the 'one-way ticket' they brought to this 'global village.' But everything didn't end as he had expected; instead, he left behind a debt that could never be repaid, whether he ascended to heaven or descended to hell, this debt would press heavily on his back, making it difficult for him to escape.
In the past, when I was teaching at a middle school, I encountered two student suicide cases. The silent extinction of young lives is undoubtedly heartbreaking, but even more heartbreaking is the pain of the parents of the students whose hearts were torn apart and blood streamed down. Seeing the child, painstakingly raised through hardship, disappear in an instant, is a pain that is difficult to dispel for a lifetime.
I have traveled to Japan several times, often taking long-distance trains, which frequently pass through very long and narrow underground tunnels. Some tunnels have no light at all, which creates a terrifying illusion, making you think you have accidentally fallen into a 'death valley,' and that black, without pause, seems to endlessly extend to a long, limitless place. This illusion is truly chilling. However, no matter how dark and long and dark the tunnel is, the train will eventually arrive at the tunnel exit, and then, a circle of bright light will silently stand at the exit. I have never encountered a tunnel without an exit.
Life is the same. All pain, frustration, disappointment, and failure are just part of the 'dark tunnel.' Bite your teeth, endure, endure, endure; endure, endure, endure, and then, you will suddenly realize that all hardships, like rain falling into the soil, leave no trace. Look up at the sky, ah, it's a clear blue.
