The Forbidden City.
Friends, Reuters carries the story today of the last of the Chinese eunuchs. It is a touching tale which demonstrates that life, for some, is not easy.
The essence of the story is that a Chinese boy, Sun, had his genitalia cut off by his father who hoped the eunuch he created would be able to join the Royal Court and serve the Emperors. His father hoped the tearful boy would rise to a position of prominence and help the family to recover land that had been stolen from them.
The boy, who, after the removal of his manhood, had a goosequill stuck in his urethra to stop it blocking, somehow survived the barbaric operation and his genitalia was pickled to ensure it would be buried with him hence again rendering him whole.
To cut a long story short, Emperors abdicated then came the Cultural Revolution and the overthrow of Royalty and Sun’s hope to avenge his family was lost. His family, fearing retribution for holding his pickled organs, threw them out. Again Sun cried. He was despised for a time but eventually became a communist official. He lived a long life and was a repository for much that went on in the Forbidden City (read the full story on Reuters).
The point of me mentioning Sun is to show how differently life deals with each one of us.
When we come into the world, we have no choice of family, society, or the time period. From the moment of our birth we are swept up by circumstances beyond our control. Some are caught up in wars. Some endure depressions. Some are born into privileged, decent families while others, like the Austrian girl whose father is on trial for rape, imprisonment and murder, have their lives ruined.
To say that life is a lottery is an understatement. A few seem to have it all (being born into the Rothchild family for example). Many get a badly stacked deck right from the beginning (imagine being born a Palestinian or in the Sudan). And most of us seem to get a mixed hand.
I have always thought that luck was the most important thing to have in your favor. I don’t think I got too much of it (although that’s beginning to change in a few relationship areas).
Regardless of luck, people tend to make the best of things (what choice do they have?) and try to come to terms with the reality that life is not about happily-ever-afters as they were told as children.
Perhaps we should be told that life is difficult and is a constant struggle right at the beginning.
That way, we, like Sun, might suffer less disappointment.
New to this site and don’t wish to be negative BUT this particular article seems to be disturbingly Freudian. I saw the news item, speaking in loose terms, at some point in my day but chose to pass it by. I admire you,David, immensely and wish that you might have chosen to do the same. Your talents were wasted and you seemed to contradict yourself as far as indoctrinating our youth in particular ways of thinking. If I am way off the mark here, I apologize in advance.
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David G Reply:
March 17th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I’m unclear as to what your comment is about, VR2!
Though I’m guessing, explaining to young people that life is not easy and that happily-ever-after and life-after-death, etc, is a fantasy is hardly indoctrination.
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I definately agree children should be better prepared to face reality.
It is unimaginable to me to think that some parents really seem to believe that their children are possessions to be sold to the highest bidder, it is so repugnant, as all of us can relate to being a dependant child.
I’ve seen photos off the Asian women who had the “lotus feet” and though their poor feet were deformed & it crippled them they in turn would do the same to their daughters, but really are stilleto heels an improvement? No, they are dangerous & crippling too – but that’s all you see on the propaganda box that we call tv.
We are all struggling the best we know how because life is an unknowable mystery and this life always ends in death – the final unknowable.
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EXPLAINING? INDOCTRINATION? Please EXPLAIN the difference.
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Kate, that is what this blog is all about: to try to clear our minds of all the rubbish and falsehoods we’ve been taught by parents, teachers, politicians, etc, so we can, by thinking, come to know for ourselves what is truth and what is reality.
Reading children happily-ever-after fairytales is not doing them any favours and neither is telling them that dying for one’s country is a good thing, that greed is good, etc, (see the neo-human manifesto in the Sidebar for more example).
VR2, to tell/explain to a child or young person the truth should be every parent’s obligation. To fill the child or young person’s mind with fantasies about things such as heaven and choirs of angels or ideas like white people are more intelligent or the country they were born in is superior is indoctrination.
Cheers.
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mmmm…. i have a feeling that living the life of a rothchild is difficult too. your life is not your own and neither is your path. the burden of carrying all of the sins of your forbears and money must be a heavy one indeed. your belly might be full but your essence is not. i don’t find it odd that many of the top tier folks running the world have sociopathic tendencies. truth and reality are ugly sometimes but i would rather live in the real world than with mythology and angels. namaste.
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No doubt life is hard. How anyone could be happy as a grasping, materialistic, greedy person is beyond me, especially when there are hungry and suffering people out there. I couldn’t sit down to a luxurious meal and enjoy it knowing that. If I don’t help somone who needs it, I’ve failed — no matter how materially rich I might be. People who only help themselves can’t be really happy. Helping others is a blessing and happiness is a natural byproduct of it. I was raised by Native-Americans (I’m half N-A and half Swedish), and I naturally lean towards socialism.
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Lest I be judged guilty of blogotage, I should explain why the story of Sun was particularly disturbing to me. I was emasculated by my father I believe from the moment of birth. Nothing I could ever do or say was good enough and I could never understand how someone as worthless as myself had been allowed to live. Being quiet and staying out of trouble didn’t change anything. Not asking for anything didn’t help. Straight A’s, class president, student council president, nothing made things different at home. I was always going to be a snot-nosed, bed-wetting pain in his ass. Forced to play little league baseball, I actually became a halfway decent lefthanded pitcher, but if I hit a batter, I’d cry and back in the hole I went. Desperate to get away, with college deferment in hand, I joined the navy and went to war. I’m fairly certain I was supposed to be one of the many that don’t come back. I have to admit, for the families sake, my father tried to shed a tear, but it just wasn’t in the works. Years later, after one of our many attempts at reconciliation, my father tried to explain that he was jealous the whole time, that I had a father and a mother and he had only had a mother and I wasn’t appreciative enough of that. So I think I have been able to figure out what it was that I had done wrong all those years. Absolutely NOTHING!
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http://survivalacres.com/wordpress/?p=1640
thought you may like this american rant
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Hear, hear, Betmo. Thanks for that interesting link. He and I have much in common!
Kristen, the rich are very happy to be far above the maddening crowd. It makes them feel good, feel superior. That their wealth comes from keeping the bulk of people poor or starving or destroying our planet doesn’t worry them one bit!
VR2, there are some similarities in the story of your upbringing with my own. All of the children in my family had inferiority complexes because of my father. He made himself feel better by crushing his children.
It took many years to break the negative cycle he set in train. Remnants of it remain.
Cheers.
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Did anyone ever say life was supposed to be hard? If they did I disagree. Life is not supposed to be hard. Maybe I am childish to think that. Of course hard to one person is easy to another.
Yet, for some reason it seems to me, that when we say, it is inevitable that life will not be easy, we are giving in to our religious indoctrination. Of course right now, for the vast majority of 21st Century humans, it seems inevitable that life will be hard.
By the way, in case you have not heard, the leftists won in the EL Salvador elections.
A little good news each day will help keep the doctor away.
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There are contradictory messages in your comment, Paine, a not unusual situation. But I do agree with your final sentence.
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It is often hard as a parent or grandparent to teach children that life is not fair and that it will be hard some or much of the time. Many of us just want our children to be happy. I know it is the right thing to do and I beleive I would have made many better decisions as a teenager and young woman if I had not been programed with so many fairytales of happily-ever-after as a child.
Here in the US there is a major industry devoted to the spreading of those fairytales about everything from the history of our country, to sex-ed, to the “news”, to business.
The results of our belief has brought the world to it’s knees while it devastates millions of lives.
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