Suffering “Behind
The Scene”
Most of us
don’t realize that enjoyment is invaluable, far more than even the highest
price for that enjoyment. Enjoying music is worth far more than the ticket
price for the concert. It’s so cheap.
Suffering
similarly is so huge. I would readily, gladly pay Rp. 1 juta – one million Rp -
or even more, when I could be freed, exempt from what I really hate to do, -
it’s so cheap - of going reluctantly to an invitation of a marriage or a
reunion, attend a funeral service, listen to a weary speech, dreary sermon, ...
then feign to look mournfully, clap your hands, stand up in a standing ovation,
keep going clever talk, keep people company and endure the suffering when I
don’t feel like it, having nothing to say, nothing to talk about and so waste
my time, my life.
It takes a lot
of courage to refuse, disappoint people, a good friend or your family, to say
“no”. Suffering to me is Dansen naar andermans pijpen (dancing to
other man’s playing the flute) as a Dutch saying goes, meaning to live, behave
yourself to the wishes, standards of other people, the society.
“Mr. Chew is a
bit stupid” said Opa Johan to his wife after reading this. “As long as my beloved
is beside me all those sufferings are nothing at all, instead, a joy to me. I
could talk endlessly and even hell is heaven with her until I stop being ...
your lover and you become my dutiful wife. Ha.ha.”.
February 2012
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