There is a curious business in this world — people pretending to be what they are not. They put on masks, step into roles, and weave fictions about themselves as though life were a stage play of endless acts. But the flow of time, relentless and honest, strips away these disguises. In the end, many find that what they truly are is far richer, far more luminous, than the costume they wore for approval.
And what of this strange modern notion — that one may despise a father, call him evil, or imagine oneself wiser than he? Such arrogance is folly. Even a father steeped in errors has weathered storms his children have never yet felt. Time, not cleverness, is the midwife of wisdom. To think yourself greater than your parents is to rob yourself of one of life’s greatest truths: that wisdom is a slow harvest, and there are no shortcuts to its field.
We see ex-lovers, too, seeking vengeance by destroying the memory of one another. They whisper slander to friends, they sow poison in the ears of children. Is there a darker cruelty? For to curse the tree is to curse its fruit, and to despise the fruit is to despise the seed one once cherished. What hatred must burn in such hearts, hoping that what was once love may rot in its own soil.
And then, the neighbor. How fiercely some guard their fences, how sharply they mark their lines. Breathe too close and they cry, “Trespass!” Yet not a single blade of grass truly belongs to them. Ownership is a grand illusion, a game all play as if it mattered. You are not an owner, but a borrower. Even your breath is borrowed, and on the sneeze of death it will return to the wind.
Memento Mori — remember death. This remembrance is no curse, but a blessing. To recall that all must die is to awaken to life. For in that shadow of mortality, pettiness falls away, pretense collapses, hatred withers. One sees clearly: this fragile moment is all we truly hold, and the wisest thing one can do with it is to live — honestly, humbly, and gratefully.