Welcome back, as I resume new comics this month! Over the summer, I came across a story from a woman named Torria on "Humans of New York." She said of her childhood, "I was just going through so much, you know. Horrible things were being done to me. Horrible, terrible things. So I’d use whatever I could. I’d pay attention to anything that made me happy. That’s one thing I can do: pay attention. It comes from something within me. We all have it. But you know, I tap into it. I still do. I just took a picture of a flower this morning. I’m so grateful. I’m telling you, I’m so grateful that I came out of the darkness. Maybe my journey wasn't to make money or to be successful or anything. It was just to recover."

I just read and re-read that statement, and came back to it weeks and even months later: "My journey wasn't to make money or to be successful or anything. It was just to recover."

And it brought to mind how unfair life can be. How different our experiences are, how due to "man's fault" -- the fault of humanness, our ability to inflict unspeakable pain on someone, to plunge another being into darkness -- someone might never fulfill some potential for greatness. It's just not fair.

There is no known reason that I can understand which explains why I was born into the life I have, and the opportunities availed to me, while somewhere else, another woman who might have been a greater artist, a more heart-touching poet, or a more nurturing mother, is struggling to keep herself alive in a civil war.

I can't judge the world on the basis of fairness. It would break my heart and drive me crazy with anguish every time. Instead, I've been trying to look at it from the Confucian perspective that each of us must simply "discharge one's duties" in life. I return to Torria and how the darkness of her childhood kept her in shadows from which she was lucky to emerge. Michael Meade says, "The fateful event of being wounded early in life creates the need for a deep healing process that becomes the path of awakening for each person." No, it wasn't fair that she suffered through such darkness. It was wrong, and she deserved better. And at the same time, she discharged her duty to herself to recover. And who can say that that's not enough? It's more than enough. It's amazing.

So what is the implication for someone whose "path of awakening" is more accessible? I guess I, too, must discharge my duties be responsible to myself and because I have the means, to live beholden to those around me. No, I can't make life fair, and I can't make the whole world just, but I can make some good for others through good work. And maybe that's all that I should expect.

A confident person isn't necessarily confident because they are beautiful, powerful, intelligent, popular, or kind. Those traits might help establish their sense of self worth, but in the end, it's about how readily they have accepted themselves (faults and all) and no longer depend so heavily on validation from others. ⁠

When illustrating this quote, I imagined it as a piece of advice from an adult to a child. Growing up, we are compelled to depend on others -- parents, teachers, and peers -- to feel accepted and loved. It becomes a habit that is difficult to break. But, if we can learn to know, accept, and love ourselves, then we pave the way for our own freedom. And that freedom in turn allows us to know, accept, and love others as well.⁠

Given the present situation in Ukraine, I repainted this with another flower in mind. 🌻 If you haven't heard the story of the fearless Ukrainian woman with sunflower seeds, please do look it up.

I've been wending my slow way through bell hooks' book, "All About Love." Something that she talks about in the beginning is how she realized after working extensively with a therapist, she was that she was never loved by her family. She never learned how to love from her parents. She explains that while she received care, support, praise, and affection from her parents, she also received extremely confusing expressions of "love" that was saddled with Not applicable, mental, and emotional violence, and perpetuated generational trauma.

At first, it felt a little shocking to me -- even disloyal -- to read that the author even came to a realization like this, to admit that the people who raised her and nurtured her in all the ways that society expects parents to, was not actually love. Who was she to decide how her parents expressed their love anyhow? But after thinking on it more, her perspective began to make more sense. Most relationships in society are built on a transactional basis, and from a certain perspective a lot of them make sense. If I pay my electric bill on time, I expect the light to turn on when I flip the switch. It's a transaction. But when transactions become the basis for a more intimate relationship like that of a parent and a child, I can see how it can quickly leech love from the picture.

It may seem like a trivial thing at first, but the transactional mindset can become a habit in many ways. It can start as a simple expectation of how my son should behave based on what I am doing for him: If I treat him to ice cream after school, he should be on his best behavior at the ice cream parlor. This kind of framing is a transaction, an expectation of one behavior in exchange for a benefit. And I wonder if this habitual kind of thinking easily grows over time into larger expectations of how children conduct themselves in life later on.

For instance, it is an often-told story in many immigrant families of parents who toil through years of hard, Not applicable labor, to give their children a brighter future -- so they can go to medical school or law school or become a software engineer -- only to become disillusioned when their children decide to switch to a less stable career, fail to perform well enough, or feel bitter towards their parents because of the pressure and burden of guilt.

So what then, is a more appropriate way to frame a relationship in order for love to be present?

Love as a state of being that emerges, as Amit Pagedar describes, when "comparison, envy, insecurity, fear, and hate disappear." Rupert Spira describes the love we feel as the "felt sense of a lack of separation." bell hooks shares the act of love as "to extend oneself for the spiritual growth of another."

Love as a state, love as a feeling, love as an action. I like all three definitions, and to combine them in my relationship with my son, is to remove expectation, to see him not as a separate person I'm transacting with, to help him grow spiritually. To take my very mundane ice cream outing example, instead of feeling betrayed by my son or painting him as ungrateful, I could frame the entire experience as something entirely different:

1. I think taking my son out for ice cream could be an enjoyable experience for both of us.
2. He begins to act in a way that is not appropriate to the outing.
3. I therefore slow down and help him and myself find emotional balance.
4. The outing is postponed and revisited at a later date.

I can choose not to saddle the outing with pre-defined expectations. I can change the goal from "having a nice time together eating ice cream" to "working through a moment of emotional dis-regulation." And I can always try again.

To put this kind of perspective into practice after so many years of programming my understanding of love and relationships is for me, seriously uphill work. But it is also a very liberating perspective, to see love not as a finite well to draw from, that can in times of conflict and difficulty feels like it could run dry, but as an endless and ever changing ocean to swim in with everyone else. It's empowering to feel that I am capable of such love. I hope you know that you are, too.

From a beautiful and tender picture book about death, Glenn Ringtved shares these words of comfort:

"Cry, heart, but never break. Let your tears of grief and sadness help begin new life. Some people say Death's heart is as dead and black as a piece of coal, but that is not true. Beneath his inky cloak, Death's heart is as red as the most beautiful sunset and beats with a great love of life."

Inspired by Saint Theresa de Avila

From a young age, so many children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, what they want to do with their lives, as though life were something to "do" -- something to mold to one's will -- rather than the canvas, the clay, the creator, and the process all rolled together and unfolding at the same time.

So maybe the deeper, more worthy challenge is not how to achieve as much as possible, but rather how to live with maximum love.

Modern society teaches us that anything worthwhile doesn't come easily. We are always told that the good things in life take hard work. We have to work hard, study hard, play hard, and if we fail or fall short, we must try harder, practice harder, become harder. Everything hard, hard, hard... because life is hard.

As a result, I found that I got in the habit of approaching nearly everything in life as a confrontation, as something to conquer or overcome. Moreover, I assumed that if I didn't apply much effort at something, then there was something wrong, there was some kind of catch.

This was a pattern I fell into in my romantic relationships for many years. I had heard the narrative of couples working hard to stay together against all odds. The stories I heard as a child like "The Little Mermaid" and "Romeo and Juliet," all seemed to convey the same thing. If you really love someone, you fight to stay together. As I grew older, I seemed to pay attention to those narratives that upheld that belief. I was surrounded by stories of how difficult it was to maintain a relationship or marriage for decades. I received advice on working hard to communicate and of the necessity to sacrifice for each other. As a result, I felt that I couldn't leave a relationship when I felt it wasn't a good fit, because I was under the impression that I could just work on it until it did.

I was compelled to put huge effort into my relationships from the beginning in a way that set them perpetually off balance. This had become such a pattern for me, that when I started getting to know my now husband, it felt so weird and wrong at how easy and effortless it was to just be with him. It made it difficult to trust him and the relationship, because I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I often found myself pulling away, because I felt like I wasn't in control.

And I think that's one pitfall of the narrative of "working hard" can play out in our lives. We've set the expectation that life is hard, and so if we're not working hard at life, then we're somehow doing it wrong. Of course, relationships can hit rough patches, especially when under external stress factors. I am not blind to those truths, and my marriage is not immune to them either. There are many aspects of life that are extremely difficult. Moreover, life in general is unfair, and some of us have harder lives than others. But at the same time, let us ask ourselves: Is there still space for joy? Is there still space for grace? Or mercy? Or softness? Can we not make things more difficult than they have to be?

For most of us in most situations, the answer will always be yes. No matter how difficult, boring, sad, or painful something is, there is always room to introduce a little space for joy in our hearts. I'm not talking about blind optimism; I'm referring to making a little crack in the rigidity of our hard mindset, a crack that may seem to make us weaker, but ultimately is, as Leonard Cohen says, what lets the light in. The Dalai Lama also taught something similar, that no matter how difficult a situation, there is always room to be kind. And even the Seven Dwarves in Disney's "Snow White" showed a whole generation how to whistle while we work.

Here, in this week's comic, I've drawn the oxherd boy, weighed down by responsibility of looking after a young friend, while defending his lunch from far-too-interested chickens. Yet he still maintains a heart that doesn't crackle with toxic positivity, but reflects an imperturbable ease that I hope to bring forth in my daily life and that of my son, especially now that he's in school. The academic environment and tradition in Taiwan is very competitive, and while I recognize the value of applied discipline, at the same time, I try to remind my son: where is the joy in studying? If he can find it, then studying may not become as hard as we fear.

What do you think about the idea of working hard versus working cheerfully? Do you do one more often than the other, and if so, when?

Ever since reading this quote by Baal Tem Shov, I've felt a sense of comfort (although small, ever so small) in moments of great uncertainty in my life. I hope you recognize each moment of your transformation, that no matter what happens, whoever you become will be there always in place of what you have been.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of all there is to do for our world. But what small things we can do every day is how we get there, so don't stop. Keep going. You can make a difference.

I've always loved these two quotes and wanted to combine them somehow:

"I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being." - Daniel Ladinsky

and

"Do not allow your anxiety about the world fill your heart. If your heart is filled with anxiety, you will get sick, and then you will not be able to help." - Thich Nhat Hanh

I can't think of progress without also thinking of its sister, patience. Progress without patience is a battle half won. Progress -- whether from an individual, communal, or societal perspective -- is nonlinear. ⁠

Sometimes it feels like we're not moving forward at all. Sometimes it even feels like we're even going backwards. However, our desire and hastiness to better ourselves and our world can lead to more pain, frustration, anger, and suffering when we find ourselves confronted with obstacles or failures. ⁠

Have faith, take heart, and be patient with yourself and with others.

In an age when human hearts and minds face unprecedented exposure to large-scale suffering, I often find myself feeling paralyzed and powerless, angry at my own inability to effect sweeping lasting change towards freedom, justice, and mercy.

It's a humbling realization to accept the limitation of human will, and yet as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, "Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean." There are likely many wars not started because someone did sweep in front of his one door. He or she did perform any number of small acts of goodness within their circle of influence, and maybe that's the difference that ultimately matters.

We're often reminded that actions speak louder than words, that words can be empty promises. But today, I am grateful for words that are born from kindness and carry the spirit of love and hope. I've been re-reading some of my favorite books lately and finding much comfort in doing so. This variation of Natsuki Takaya's saying focuses on that aspect of the power of words.⁠

There are many ways for strength to manifest itself. The one that is helping me most right now is strength through resilience.⁠⁠

Korean Zen Buddhist teacher Haemin Sunim said,

"Earth is a great school for the growth of our spirit, not a courtroom where we are judged and later punished. Our purpose here is to break free from self-imposed restraints -- often shaped by the stories we tell ourselves -- and to rediscover our innate true nature of love.

We don't need to live at the level of the ego, which feeds on the illusion of separation and the struggle for survival. Instead, we can rise to the level of spirit, embracing the truth that all life events, even the painful ones, serve our growth and evolution."

To consider, even for a moment, that life could be a school versus a courtroom, a curriculum versus a punishment, is an invitation to explore something broader than instinctual survival and deeper than transient pleasure.

Walking meditation is one that I find easiest to practice, even for a few minutes in my day, no matter where I am. It's an accessible meditation, especially for people who are on the move.

Nhat Hanh had described a kind of walking meditation with a mantra as well to go along with it:

"Usually, our in-breath tends to be a little shorter than our out-breath. When you breathe in, you may take two steps and say: 'I have arrived, I have arrived.' When you breathe out, you might like to take three steps and say: 'I am home, I am home, I am home.'

'Home' means being at home in the present moment where you can touch all the wonders of life. We should be able to walk with a lot of tenderness and happiness on this beautiful planet. 'I have arrived, I am home,' is not a statement, but a practice."

Some days it feels hard to go softly with a compassionate heart. This quote by Krishna Das captures this dilemma so well. There are still ways to ripen, even if I have to drag myself there.

I came across this poem by Bertolt Brecht, German playwright and poet who lived through both World Wars, and fearing persecution for voicing his political criticisms through theatre, fled to Southern California only to be targeted and surveilled during the McCarthy era's Second Red Scare. I can only imagine all that he saw through what he assuredly felt was an extremely dark period for his country, and still he maintains a motto, a mantra to remember that expression can and will persist. And my impression is that it will persist not in spite of, but also because of that darkness.

"Motto"
by Bertolt Brecht

In the dark times
Will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.

So, if you find yourself concerned about what your world is going through. It bears reminding that no matter what happens. Still we sing. Be it only a whisper, be it only in your heart— Sing. Sing. Sing.

What's in our nature can't be changed. Like water that has to follow the law of gravity, flowing downward and seeking the lowest point, we're also subject to forces beyond our control.

But what could be considered a limitation also becomes an opportunity. Flowing water goes around obstacles, forging its own path rather than tackling the immovable head on. Water reaches its destination by yielding. I hope you find your way, too, despite what stands in your path.

Everyone of us has his blind spots. Everyone is mistaken -- some in many ways, some in fewer -- but life is a chance for us all to learn and make sense of things, and to unlearn and relearn and reconfigure our understanding over and over again until in some distant future, we awaken.

What makes this possible in this lifetime is confronting everyone else and their learning and sense-making and mistaken-ness. As the Buddhist saying goes, "Like potatoes rubbing together in a pot, we all get clean."