purple.light

Monday, February 16, 2004

Me and my Shadow 

Nothing much to update here.
Between bouts of lows and stomach upsets (suspect I have lost a couple of kilos last week due to fact that I ate 1/5 of what I normally eat a day for one whole week - my top was flappy today and I nearly died of heart attack upon seeing my spaghetti-strap-topped body in mirror), you can pretty much say that I am living the life of characters from The House Of The Dead.

Anyway.
Been reading an intriguing book entitled Life. An Enigma, a Precious Jewel which can be found here.
It's an English translation of a Japanese book on the meaning of life, the existence of life and its connection to Buddhism.
I admit that a lot of its theories, drawn from philosophers ranging from Kant to Mill, are lost on me but as I persist in reading, I find its analysis logical and mystifying at the same time. Is that possible? Is such a contradiction ever possible? But then again, life is something that is intangible and yet it inhabits a body so real and prone to damage and decay.

I saw meaning in a certain part of the book and want to share it with my friends who drop by here occasionally. It is an analogy used to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between human beings and the universe.

"The body moves and transforms the shadow, but at the same time, the body is in a sense created by the shadow, for the body would not be a body if it did not cast a shadow. In other words, the body is given being and identity by the environment and vice versa."

Almost makes me want to say "Amen" but somehow, it's not really appropriate, is it?

yAnn at 2/16/2004 10:43:00 PM