Don't I Know?

 

 
"A person’s age, sex, race, income, geographic location, nationality, and educational level have only trivial correlations with happiness, typically explaining less than 2% of the variance. An important exception is that hungry, diseased, oppressed people in developing nations tend to be slightly less happy – but once they reach a certain minimum standard of calorie intake and physical security, further increases in material affluence do not increase their happiness very much."

Geoffrey Miller, American evolutionary psychologist

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Dear Kate,

The moment I first questioned my faith was when I realized life is so full of meaning but I wanted so little of it.

But I will need to qualify this claim, twice, to almost correct it.

First, there was no "faith" to speak of.  It was more like a lifestyle, a way of upbringing that I saw no reason to go through any trouble to bring anyone down with my questioning it.  If it has done me any good I wouldn't know what then, and if bad, not enough for me to protest.

Second, it wasn't really that I wanted so little of this meaning-full life, but my way of understanding it, deeply shaped by my "faith," entailed no such pursuit of fullness.  "Faith" then was like a subscription to a limited set of good ideas, mostly has nothing to do with this life, more like an insurance policy against some odds that were less threatening than the meaninglessness of my next minute.

"What is the meaning of life?"  I don't remember growing up ever hearing anyone asking that, in so many words.  The truth is, not even now.  Not at work, not at church, not around dinner table, any dinner table.  Don't ask.  Don't tell.  Mostly, don't show.  Don't let on that you don't know it: just keep doing things to live like you do.  Fight the stigma of your confused, depressed, and lonely state, but don't let anyone undo your pride, your right to live on so little.  Little is good.  We can control little.  Little us with our little life, we call that security, even peace.

I am sharing with you above one of my favorite songs.  You'll say, Not another Mandarin song, something I won't understand, even with the help of Google Translate!  And I will need to correct you, twice.

First, it is not Mandarin, it is Taiwanese Hokkien.  Second, you are not alone in not understanding it: I didn't know a single word of this song either, because I do not know Hokkien.  I said I "didn't" because now I do, after watching this video I've found online, about an hour ago.  I can read the Chinese characters, which sound nothing like Cantonese or Mandarin.

I fell in love with this song way before I knew what on earth Michelle Pan was longing about.  But I knew she was longing.  After listening to it all these years I can actually sing along with her in Hokkien, without, that's right, knowing a single word she sang.  And cried too.

To say I don't know a song just because I can't pin down the words is like a poor man saying happiness is a luxury, or a rich woman complaining she can't afford not doing enough to keep affording her happiness.  I could have easily looked up the lyrics.  So why didn't I?

The moment when I first had faith, started to learn to trust, was when I realized life is so full of meaning and I wanted all of it.

Yours, Alex