Home » Opinion » Book review
In our obsession with speed we're rushing past real life
By Wan Lixin |
August 7, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Chinese are obsessed with speed today.
The past decade has seen the last steam locomotives replaced by diesel engines, which then were replaced by electric-powered engines, then high-speed rail and mag-levs, as transport steadily gets faster and faster.
A couple of years ago the buzz was dongchezu (high-speed multiple units), but the hype today is about gaotie.
No one knows what gaotie means, but who cares about meaning at this time of rush?
It is rumored that tests are underway on a vactrain that will travel at 1,000 kilometers per hour.
I envy Vietnamese because their parliament has the guts to veto their dream bullet train project.
In our rush from one place to another, we have lost our ability to appreciate the mundane, the commonplace -- the journey itself.
Traveling by steam locomotive train, one could still take in the scenery. Today a journey is about departure and arrival.
We are out of tune with nature.
Could we still be moved by the moon, the howling wind, the sleeping flower, the dew, or a butterfly?
A few years ago a professor remarked to me that today's young people are no longer capable of tears or anger.
In an era dominated by soulless specialists and heartless hedonists, only a roller coaster ride can induce a few seconds of thrill.
In our joyless quest for joys, real joy turns out to be elusive.
Alain de Botton's "How Proust Can Change Your Life" tries to help us recover some of our lost sensibility.
By guiding us to the inner recesses of Marcel Proust, the author of "Remembrance of Things Past," or "In Search of Lost Time," de Botton shows us the value of a slower pace, and misery.
As de Botton summarizes succinctly Proust's attitudes towards beauty, friendship, time and suffering, he makes Proust's one-and-a-quarter-million-word magnum opus accessible to the general readership.
We gain glimpses into a life not yet corrupted by deadlines and efficiency, as the frail and hypersensitive Proust spent 14 years "lying in a narrow bed under a pile of thinly woven woolen blankets writing an unusually long novel without an adequate bedside lamp."
That's the starting point of living more fully and acutely.
"An advantage of not going too fast is that the world has a chance of becoming more interesting in the process," writes de Botton.
Today, the state of being busy can be liberally applied to flatter one's vanity, no matter how foolish or ridiculous that kind of "business" happens to be.
Before Chinese became obsessed with efficiency, even the humblest work had a value unrelated to profit.
My mother used to spend several weeks stitching a pair of cloth shoe soles for the family.
A wonton maker could support a whole family with a portable food stand, because his wonton tasted good.
Art might be a grand word to use here, but there is a kind of satisfaction to be derived from the engagement that has nothing to do with money. Children may experience something similar when playing with toys, but not those employees at Foxconn.
But life is not about enjoyment.
The full experience of life includes all the rich tapestry of pathos -- pains, miseries, yearnings, disillusions, and myriad other sadness and ills our mortal frame is heir to.
"In Proust's view, we don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped," comments de Botton.
Modern people are avoiding pains at all costs -- there is institutionalized help, psychiatrists, drugs and sitcoms.
Typical Chinese philosophy rarely makes too much of absolutes. A concept becomes meaningful only in context, as contrasting element.
In classical "I Chang," there is the observation that piji tailai, or "out of the depth of misfortune comes bliss."
Religions, by pointing out the transience of our worldly tenure, show us the futility and folly of putting too much emphasis on the worldly possessions.
There is much value in taking time to stand and observe.
If we ceased to see our children as extensions of our own unrealized ambitions, we would discover more in them.
De Botton's book still qualifies as self-help manual in its broad intent, but he does draw some valuable lessons from Proust's life and work.
The past decade has seen the last steam locomotives replaced by diesel engines, which then were replaced by electric-powered engines, then high-speed rail and mag-levs, as transport steadily gets faster and faster.
A couple of years ago the buzz was dongchezu (high-speed multiple units), but the hype today is about gaotie.
No one knows what gaotie means, but who cares about meaning at this time of rush?
It is rumored that tests are underway on a vactrain that will travel at 1,000 kilometers per hour.
I envy Vietnamese because their parliament has the guts to veto their dream bullet train project.
In our rush from one place to another, we have lost our ability to appreciate the mundane, the commonplace -- the journey itself.
Traveling by steam locomotive train, one could still take in the scenery. Today a journey is about departure and arrival.
We are out of tune with nature.
Could we still be moved by the moon, the howling wind, the sleeping flower, the dew, or a butterfly?
A few years ago a professor remarked to me that today's young people are no longer capable of tears or anger.
In an era dominated by soulless specialists and heartless hedonists, only a roller coaster ride can induce a few seconds of thrill.
In our joyless quest for joys, real joy turns out to be elusive.
Alain de Botton's "How Proust Can Change Your Life" tries to help us recover some of our lost sensibility.
By guiding us to the inner recesses of Marcel Proust, the author of "Remembrance of Things Past," or "In Search of Lost Time," de Botton shows us the value of a slower pace, and misery.
As de Botton summarizes succinctly Proust's attitudes towards beauty, friendship, time and suffering, he makes Proust's one-and-a-quarter-million-word magnum opus accessible to the general readership.
We gain glimpses into a life not yet corrupted by deadlines and efficiency, as the frail and hypersensitive Proust spent 14 years "lying in a narrow bed under a pile of thinly woven woolen blankets writing an unusually long novel without an adequate bedside lamp."
That's the starting point of living more fully and acutely.
"An advantage of not going too fast is that the world has a chance of becoming more interesting in the process," writes de Botton.
Today, the state of being busy can be liberally applied to flatter one's vanity, no matter how foolish or ridiculous that kind of "business" happens to be.
Before Chinese became obsessed with efficiency, even the humblest work had a value unrelated to profit.
My mother used to spend several weeks stitching a pair of cloth shoe soles for the family.
A wonton maker could support a whole family with a portable food stand, because his wonton tasted good.
Art might be a grand word to use here, but there is a kind of satisfaction to be derived from the engagement that has nothing to do with money. Children may experience something similar when playing with toys, but not those employees at Foxconn.
But life is not about enjoyment.
The full experience of life includes all the rich tapestry of pathos -- pains, miseries, yearnings, disillusions, and myriad other sadness and ills our mortal frame is heir to.
"In Proust's view, we don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped," comments de Botton.
Modern people are avoiding pains at all costs -- there is institutionalized help, psychiatrists, drugs and sitcoms.
Typical Chinese philosophy rarely makes too much of absolutes. A concept becomes meaningful only in context, as contrasting element.
In classical "I Chang," there is the observation that piji tailai, or "out of the depth of misfortune comes bliss."
Religions, by pointing out the transience of our worldly tenure, show us the futility and folly of putting too much emphasis on the worldly possessions.
There is much value in taking time to stand and observe.
If we ceased to see our children as extensions of our own unrealized ambitions, we would discover more in them.
De Botton's book still qualifies as self-help manual in its broad intent, but he does draw some valuable lessons from Proust's life and work.
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