“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”
― John Lennon
Yesterday, my dad told me about a conversation he had with my mom.
“I’m not sure how much longer I will live,” he said.
“Don’t say that,” said my mom. “My life would be horribly boring without you.”
They were watching a TV program about the elderly, and they somewhat projected themselves deeply into elderly people facing their death featured in the program. Together for forty years, they’re inseparable now. Since my dad spent most of his career in the elderly care industry, he worries a lot about his wife, especially the way he talks to her and choice of words in order to make her everyday life as comfortable as possible.
But when my dad told me about it, he asked me a question: “Don’t you think our thoughts grow stronger with those whom you can’t see anymore?” Maybe, they could be your late grandparents, friends from the distant past, or your ex.
Having said that, don’t you also think like this? We tend to think that we only interact with those around us. Those whom we can visually see and consort with on the daily basis. They could be your parents or your close friends. But, without realizing it, we could have undirectly interacted with a far larger number of people whom we even never met before than those around us. They could be someone working in a factory in Vietnam, or someone in Silicon Valley. For instance, think about the phone in your hand right now. How many people do you think have contributed to making a smartphone? Stretching from someone who invented the OS to another one who manufactured the hardware, a tremendous number of people have contributed to help you communicate with your friends and family through the network.
Here, let me talk about a Catholic organization in Hokkaido, Japan. But, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be religious about anything here, but I’m particularly interested in their practice. The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO) is a Roman Catholic contemplative religious order serving God and people mainly through prayer and work. And what is interesting about them is that they have time in the day to pray for someone they’ve never met before. Someone suffering from poverty or someone battling with his/her mental struggle despite wealth and success somewhere in the world.
Why do they pray for those who never met before? The nuns of OCSO don’t know any details about their needs or anything about their backgrounds nor do they have a relationship of trust or mutual experiences with them. And those who are somewhere in the world don’t even know that the nuns have prayed for them. Yet, they keep praying for them.
Probably their answer is that God does know the nuns have prayed for them despite any personal connections. But my perspective is that what they do is beautiful because our world is more interlinked to each other than ever in history. As I mentioned earlier, we depend on each other far more than we think it is, transcending borders, race, ethnicity, and gender. A secret idea in a Kenyan boy’s mind could have the potential to shape your tomorrow. Who knows?
So, what was mentioned above all comes down to this point. We tend to think we’re a citizen of our native country. That’s because our governments demand us to think like that. But can’t we consider ourselves as a citizen of the world? John F. Kennedy once said in his inaugural address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” But I believe that’s irrelevant in the twenty-first century. Maybe we instead should say, “Ask not what the world can do for you, ask what you can do for the world.”
Some people even pray for their enemy. They disagree today, but they could be able to understand each other tomorrow through debate. Since we’re living in a world with several shards of meaning, it’s never simple to figure out the truth and answer we’re craving for. When it is hard to find an answer, maybe asking the right question could bring us closer to the answer we’re searching for. We need to keep asking why the world is the way it is and seek what kind of difference we can make for the world and for the future generations.
Thank you so much for reading this essay up to this point.
Finally, here are some night shots of Yokohama I photographed with my Canon DSLR.
