Born into the world, we are nothing more than soap bubbles iridescent in the sunlight, trembling and swaying as we contract and expand, as if breathing softly, as if trying to say something. Crowded together, forced to alter our own shapes, we pile and hesitate within clusters of foam, unable to make up our minds, not knowing how to choose, not knowing whether to linger or to leave, nor knowing where to go.
If the trajectories of the world and of life all lead toward some far-off elsewhere, then two straight line-segments, after they intersect, can only gradually drift apart from one another. If, in their moment of nearness, they are drawn together by each other's warmth, sincerity, and goodness, then surely even straight line-segments will bend, trembling, stubbornly twisting toward each other -- like the helices of DNA, like the interweaving of twin meteors, cheering and leaping at each other, drawn by the smile at the corner of the other's mouth, drawn by the touch of brightness in the other's soul, drawn by the spirited grace shown in the other's eyes and brows -- and even though, by the dictates of fate, they have no choice but to head toward their separate finales, that instant of eternity will surely, like a brilliant white-hot iron, sear an indelible crimson mark into the heart. Each time it is touched, a wave of heart-rending, lung-piercing pain comes surging like the tide, a suffocation as if drowning, despair without a voice.
But fantasies are, in the end, only fantasies. Born into the world, we are fragile soap bubbles, breaking into pieces at the slightest touch. The moment the dream ends, you realize the line-segments are still calmly heading off in their predetermined directions. O wishful one, did you hear it? -- that roar that tore apart every curtain and shattered every mirror: "Wake up. You aren't worth it!"
Because DNA must in the end unwind, and meteors must in the end vanish at the edge of the sky. Every beautiful thing in the world has its end, and after great joy comes only deeper pain. Memory always has a touch of bitterness mingled with its sweetness, because time flows slowly forward, and everything will forever lie behind. The past cannot be replayed; nor can one return to an earlier moment in time.
After great joy comes great sorrow. If that is so, then perhaps one ought to choose to take it all calmly. The fireworks burn out, and threads of ash drift down from the sky. Within the corpses of the fireworks lies buried a phantasmagorical past. A pot of hot tea, before it is even drunk, slowly cools, and faint wisps of steam diffuse out and dissipate into the void. Is the friendship of a gentleman, plain as water, also a kind of fearing and fleeing from the inevitable scorching to come? Just like dropping a tea-leaf into a cup of hot water: since things have already come to this, why add another pale, futile garnish?