Death

“I knew if I stayed around long enough something like this would happen”

   What do the words mean? See what happen?

His own gravestone

   These are the words carved in the gravestone of George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950). He was an Irish play writer and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He was the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend whom he survived. Shaw died there, aged 94, from chronic problems exacerbated by injuries he incurred by falling from a ladder. 

   Despite his fame in life, these words show his cynical attitude toward his own death. They even seem to make a joke about it.

George Bernard Shaw

   I knew if I stayed around long enough something like this would happen.

      In the short phrase which Bernard Shaw seemed to have spat out, it shows what the death really is about. Everyone dies. Death is something that is fair to everyone. People are destined to die from the very moment they are born. Since they are babies, they are slowly dying. They are cliché phrases, as well as being something axiomatic. These are rather depressing concepts to think about. However, they are true.

     People’s fear about death has existed from a long times ago, ever since our ancestor started to praise and hold ceremonies for the afterlife and death. In Middle Ages in Europe, people’s fear about unknown world beyond death had led them to rely on religion. Religion was a sort of phenomenon sweeping Middle Ages. People repented their sins, hoping to go to the Heaven. Clergymen even sold Indulgence—the ticket that would grant them shorter ‘waiting time’ in purgatory(place between the secular world and Heaven). For emperor Qin Shu Huang( 259 BC – 210 BC) in China, was looking for a medicine that would grant him immortality. Modern technologies have developed to grant people longer lives. There are even peculiar experiences, though its validity has not been proven, practicing freezing human quickly and thawing them in the future to grant them lives that defy one's fate and time. Or, people take indifferent attitude toward death, not easily being able to imagine their own death. They distance themselves from the word, thinking it is something happening to others, happening to themselves in a far away future in the horizon.

   After all, people do not have such positive mind set toward death. They lament and express their great sorrows. Their beloved are gone forever. They certainly have some negative feelings about death. I am not saying it does not apply in my case, too. As a seven-year-old girl, I prayed to the God in my bed every night to keep my beloved people around me ‘alive’ with me forever. Losing somebody was the last thing I wanted to do. At the same time, it is something I could not avoid.

   I knew if I stayed around long enough something like this would happen.

   

everyone dies

   Looking at the quotation, a lot of thoughts crossed my mind. That I needed to live a life that I would not regret, since I would one day, die. That one should not feel so overwhelmed by dying or losing somebody.

   However, the idea that struck me hard was what death really was about. Death was something like that—basically it was something that one meets.

Simple, obvious, axiom. However, a thought not a lot of people get to ponder about. Death. Like getting a cold or growing in height in teen-age, dying is a phase that everyone goes through as a human. No matter how hard one tries to distance oneself from the word, it is the closest word that stands by in our lives. No matter how big of a fuss we make about death, death was 'something like that'. It.

Stories

   Flower village.

   It was the name of caring center for homeless, disabled or elders needing special care. When our school announced it was mandatory for students to do ‘volunteer works’ in the flower village for three days. The first thing that came into my mind; the name was rather funny.

   In the center, people taken care of were living in different areas of the ‘village’. They were classed according to different level of needs—different kinds of people in different sections and floors. To be frank, I thought the village was bizarre at first.

Every time I met anyone, I was to say ‘I love you(sa-rang-hap-nee-da)’, preferable drawing a heart with my arms above my head. It was ‘the official bowing custom’ in the village. The community in fact had the awkward and rather unnatural—that comes from something man-made- atmosphere embedded in its every bit. Wall decorated with ceaseless pattern of flowers, bright flower decorations on the duvet sheet, cups, frames, and on grandmothers’ blue and pink clothes. They seemed to cover up ‘flower villagers’’ awkwardness, pretending everything was flowery and nice when they were not. They seemed to cover up misery of those people by pretending there was nothing but happiness. It was a small society created just for them.

   After having been allocated to the third floor with three other girls to serve ‘grandmothers’, I became a step closer to the flower village. Literally, everyone had a story to tell. It is obvious that everyone has a story to tell. However, I only became fully aware of the fact when I actually was to hear those stories. Flower villagers had stories to tell, like everyone else around me. When they were categorized as one big group—flower villagers, those who fell through the crack in the society, those with ‘flaws’—they all had a story to tell.

   The first confrontation was not so easy, before I got to hear the stories. First ten minutes given to me to have some ‘decent conversations’ with grandmothers were the longest one I had ever had.

   ‘Did you have breakfast?’, ‘The weather is so hot these days, isn’t it’, ‘would you like a massage?’ or ‘the clothes suits you well!’. The most creative one I came up with probably was ‘the duvet and your shirts are both blue!’ for the purpose of paying a compliment.

There were various kinds of people there. Some who greeted us with naïve-five-year-old-girl’s smile, showing off her bracelet. The stern grandmother who would not talk to us, no matter what. A grandmother in blue flower shirts and brown flower pants refusing our hugs. A Child-like grandmother lying on the bed, gripping our hands tightly. We even had the one who constantly shouted, though it was unclear,

   ‘Your home is the best! Anyone who cannot go to their home are jerks.’

One asked me if I knew this person ‘A’. I said I did not, but she kept asking if I knew him and if he bought me any food to eat. Then she started to brag about how he earned a lot of money and was having a successful life. After talking about this A person for a while, I told her I had to go. She thanked me and said goodbye. Then she said,

   ‘Ask him why he is not coming. Okay? Please ask him to come. Ask him why he is not coming to see me.’

   I promised I would.

   There was another mother-like grandmother who could not speak very well, like some other flower-villagers. She tapped on her forehead, and then her neck, murmuring something like car accident. There was a scar in her neck. Beside the mother-like grandmother, we had a calm grandmother. She is the one I remember the most.

She was lying on the bed. When my friends and I entered the room, our eyes met. The calm black eyes, fainted black as time and hard work brought to her. At first, her tranquility, which was a rare thing to observe among flower-villagers, surprised me. In a gentle manner she asked me where I was from and suggested that I sat down. I held her hand. It was warm. Like I did to some other grandmothers, I began the conversation saying that she had a pretty manicure on her fingernails. She replied saying,

   ‘They are ugly hands. The hard works I did changed my hands.’ There were wrinkles, spots, and hard skins revealing her past, her own story. Next, I was surprised by how her attitude and hands resembled the one of my own grandmother used to have. I held her hand tightly, with choking feeling in my throat, unable to say anything. Sound of breezing wind, touching the leaves. Hands at the clock ticking idly. Busy noise from hover machine at the corridor. Tangible silence.

   ‘It is not the work that kills people’, she said. ‘It is the time that kills. Everyone dies when the time comes.’

   I wanted to say something, but could not.

   ‘I, too, will die someday.’

   As if she was talking about the weather that day or some village events taking place. Her calm words violently shook my reminiscent of the past event, bringing up again the sentiment, thoughts and even the smell of it. Still, silence.

   Nonetheless, she told her story in her calm eyes staring empty shape in the room, as if there was something. She began to tell me about her past. How she wanted a bowl of rice but could not say it our loud fearing the scolding from her older brother. Then she told me about her son. She said he did not want her to work too much, but she had no choice. The son cried at her back. But she hit him whenever he did.

   Reciting exact street number of her house, she spat out,

   ‘They told me to come here. So I’m here. But since they do not tell me to go back…’

   When I told her I had to go and work upon teachers’ call, calm grandmother told me not to go, in a way that my own grandmother once asked me to stay with her.

Calm grandmother, her story and her words filled my thoughts during the whole stay in the flower-village along with other stories I heard.

Forgetting-Losing (revised)

Forgetting-Losing

As an eight-year-old elementary school kid, my life was simple. I would go to the school which was at the time merely considered as a yet another place with metal slides and friends whom I could play hide and seek with. My daily routine at school was: playtime-lunch-playtime.

My parents were both extremely busy. Mom came back from work late, and dad was not even living with our family because of his job in another region. So instead of going home after school, I went to my grandparents’ every day and waited for mom to come until the clock struck 10. My Grandparents were my second-parents. With them, I learned not to devour food before adults had their chance. With them, I began to think how cool it was to collect things- like books and souvenirs which were set up on the drawer in their living room-and I started to collect things such as rocks, erasers, papers, feeling so professional. With them, I realized how a night’s walk was not frightening at all, but actually was soothing. They loved me and I loved them back. With them, I grew up.

My simplicity in life began to crack as I entered middle school. I adjusted myself to a new daily life routine which did not include a whole chunk of ‘playtime’. Then I started to run as if I was chasing something, like everyone else around me was. At some point, having a dinner with grandparents once or twice a week began to feel like a burden. I would feel disturbed when I woke up on sweet Sunday mornings to pick up phone calls from my grandfather. When I visited them, I made a promise to ‘drop in as often as I can’. A promise that I had to keep renewing. My precious ‘collections’ in a special box were crouching in the corner barely noticed.

Whenever I felt sorry, I reassured myself that it was not my fault. It was because the environment around me was getting more complex. I had to form new connections with other people to be a member of a group. Participating in ‘social activities’. I was always somehow, somewhat, ‘occupied’. There was simply not enough room to fit in everything.  Nonetheless, I still had some time to check things on Facebook in my free time, text people, eat out with my friends after the finals. Somewhere inside my mind, I knew the issue was about me, not about the ‘environment’.Changes were brought about because I was forgetting. About time, memories, feelings I shared.

People forget. There are many things they can forget. They range from concrete objects such as their phones to something more sentimental as their memories. When you do not care about anything you used to care so much. When you feel a gap time has set between you and some people around you. When you begin to think things you poured so much passion into were not so important. You are forgetting.

Some people think this whole process of ‘forgetting’ as a part of growing up. According to them, it enhances your ability to categorize what it important from what it not. It makes you focused. Once you fall into a habit of forgetting, you begin to forget some things mattered at all to you. You become so used to it that it is not a great deal anymore. You might think things are moving on to much more important things, socially and academically productive things.

When you do forget, it means you are watching them escape and slip through your fingers. Forgetting means you are losing something. Another piece of valuable memory, sentiment, story. Forgotten, lost in your life. Do not let it slip away. Keep it. Grasp it.

Toefl Writing Prompt 2- Bond to the public

   21^st century is all about ‘bonding’. There are different kinds of bonding, as in psychological term, such as a bonding to one’s primary environment or the one to the strong authorities such as dictators. Without the bond, people become more independent as an individual entity. At the same time, it can make one feel isolated and extremely insecure. This is a main reason why people cling to the bonds, even if that indicates they are giving up their freedom. The bonding people are forming in 21^st century is different. It is a bonding to the public, when a person’s thoughts or actions are strongly influenced by the public.

   In 21^st century, a phenomenon that supports this whole ‘bonding’ idea is ‘social networking’. These days, people keep in contact with each other through social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’, ‘twitter’ or blogs. They share ideas and communicate, and make new friends. Most importantly and inevitably, they put information about themselves for the public to view. While doing so, people get sensitive about what others-the public-think about them. As they put more efforts and cares into them, they are being bound. This even causes them to feel anxious when they find out the bond to the public weakens. For instance, a person cares about number of ‘likes’ or comment on the post on their Facebook page.

   Not only the social networking sites but also the media plays crucial role. Media’s primary role is to report events to the people to know. Through the process, it is not only the reporting that they are doing. They can lead their reports to certain direction to get sympathies and formulate a ‘public opinion’. As there are more means to deliver the message, thanks to development of technology, it spreads quickly and in a large scale. It strongly influences individual’s opinion, brining their own opinion to be like the one in the mainstream. As an example, some fast spread gossips or rumors about socially prominent figures such as politicians or celebrities become the target of public opinion, like witchcraft.

   The idea of bonding stands out when we observe how individuals care about values that many people believe in. As the significance in reaching to a good and stable social status is increasing, things such as getting good scores, going to good universities, or getting a good job are being stressed. Meaning, greater emphasis is put on things that people consider to be valuable or worthy in the society. Individuals, being influenced, struggle to attain the expected level of work or possess things that the public has put values into. This may leads them to forget about what they really like and cared for, often seen in news articles on teens without dreams they pursue, only focusing on values put by the public.

   Forming a bond. In 21^st century through the bond, we place our identity in the public. Through the bond, individuals may feel more or less secure. Through the bond, however, they can lose their unique self-identities, turning into the colorless drop in a mass of public. Being bound, people may be digressing rather than evolving. It is true that human cannot live without one another. However, emphasis should be put on living with them, not living according to them or being dragged by them. It depends on people’s attitude. What 21^st century would bring can turn out to be a harmony with a lot of social interaction or a mass lacking individuality, will, and characteristics.