The name "Tove Jansson" may not ring any bell.... but Moomin should do the trick. Tove Jansson is the creator of Moomin --- in Moomin Valley, you'll find "creatures" who are really carefree, who really accept diversity, who have no prejudice....
In her book, "A winter book", you'll find her insights for life.... I've reproduced the extract of one of the proses that my heart finds many echoes ...
(from "Travelling Light"... a story about Tove's attempt to leave people such that she could stop feeling sorry for them"
"Sometimes all manifestations of human anxiety seem veryvsimilar to me - at least the everyday matters that people continue to worry about when, so to speak, rain is no longer coming in through the roof, there is no shortage of food and no one is being physically threatened - if you understand what I mean. Over and above factual catastrophes, miseries of one sort or another seem to repeat themselves with rather monotonous regularity so far as I've noticed: he or she is unfaithful or bored, someone's no longer enjoying their work, ambitions or dreams have gone out of shape, time's rapidly getting shorter, one's family is behaving in an incomprehensiveble and frightening way, a frendship has been totally poisoned by something trivial. One is frantically busy with inessential, while what is important and irreparable goes from bad to worse, duty and blame nibble away at us and the whole syndrome is vaguely labelled angst, a spiritual malaise one seldom succeeds in defining or even tries to define. I know. One's opportunities for feeling ill at ease in life are countless and I recognise them, they constantly return, each affliction in its own little compartment. I should be familiar with this state of affairs and by now I should have the right answer to the problem but I haven't. There is no practical answer, is there? So we just listen. And anyway, it seems no one is really interested in practical solutions; they just go on talking, they come back and talk about the same thing again and again, they won't let you go."
Of course, her statements may not apply to the poorer provinces in China or Africa...but in big cities, her story seems too true.
When I was typing this, I noted some Government officials were in Guangdong discussing with Mainland authorities about ensuring adequate food supply for HK during this difficult time ... I feel soo ashamed... though I know I would be "benefiting" from this meeting, I just wonder ... are we ensuring our well being at the expense of those who desparately need this ... just to ensure that Hong Kong people will have sumptuous meals during CNY?? Could we instead consider ways such that we get our food supply from other areas and sharing the desparately needed food with our counterparts in the Mainland... I may be just the prince who asked 何不吃肉糜 .... but still...
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