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Han writes (rewritten for clarity):
"You ended Thursday's article
(Be the change, September 7) with a 'warning: Do not play Gandhi at home
or school. You may hurt yourself. For extreme sport, try the bungee jump
and, remember, follow instructions.' If I understood you correctly,
Gandhi's a good example for people. To act like Gandhi is to act upon
one's dream and not to follow normal rules. Then, why the warning?"
My comments:
Han, you understood me correctly, alright. To act like
Gandhi is to act upon one's dreams and not to always follow what you call
"normal rules".
With the warning, I was being ironic. I was just
being realistic in giving advice to people. I'm trying to prevent people
from acting silly and then blaming it on Gandhi.
Gandhi is a class act.
He's a good
example for everyone, but everyone is not good enough to follow his example.
When I watched a program showcasing Shaolin kungfu on television the
other night, I saw a young martial art master break a piece of brick into
two by hitting the brick against the top of his head. At the end of the
program, there came a similar warning against youngsters from putting what
they saw on the small screen into practice.
You see, the master I saw breaking bricks on TV
has undergone years of training (and not just to break bricks) to be able
to accomplish that feat. The average boy at school, for example, does not
have the advantage of the same training.
Therefore, it is not a very good idea for him to try hitting bricks
against the top of his head, is it?
The bricks will by and
large remain intact, as you can imagine. His head will hurt. Blood may
spill and what good might possibly come off that?
With Gandhi, we are talking about something of a much greater scale. We
are talking about moving mountains.
It can be done (metaphorically, of course), but not without practice,
not without training, not without first achieving a deeper understanding
what's involved in the process and mastering the know-how.
In Gandhi's case, he understood both sides. He
understood his friends and also his enemies (what principles and values
each operated on). He understood at a deeper level the meaning of life,
the ultimate game of give-and-take. He was prepared to give his life and
lives of his fellow men in order to achieve the same thing, life for
himself and his fellow Indians, only a better life.
He understood what the British were prepared
to give, based on their own lofty value system. Here the word lofty is
uttered without sarcasm. The British by the time of Indian Independence
understood enough about the sanctity of freedom and basic human rights,
the merit of national independence and above all the injustice of their
colonial rule to enable Gandhi to get away with his gambits.
I'm giving the whole game away.
We'd better return to the much-easier-to-copy act of breaking bricks,
which sounds much closer to our daily existence. I hope, though, you have
by now seen the similarity in spirit between brick-breaking and Gandhi's
heroics - Without wisdom and patience, without a deeper understanding of
gains in losses and losses in gains you won't be able to achieve either.
So, sticking with bricks and leaving the great Gandhi in peace, let me
solemnly declare this warning again:
Bricks can be broken by the head. "Normal rules" can all be bent, but
not before you know how.
Before you
learn the know-how, you'd better follow instructions and "be a good
boy".
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