Have you ever wonder as to why we don’t know the people that we want to know, and those that we know is not exactly what we thought they are, might be because of how we perceived them.
I once heard a story, there was an elderly lady talking to a child. She has a coin in her hand and asked if the child wants to know what it was, if yes, then to knock on the table 5 times, the child did as told. She then opened her hand and there sat an ordinary coin. After that, she closed her hand into a fist, and asked the same question again. But this time, the child lost interest and really did not want to know, the truth is, the child knew that in that hand was just an ordinary coin and there was nothing special about it.
I guess it’s only human nature to want to know, to have and to hold, and we would do almost anything to find out, to get to know but once we know what it was, we then lost interest. If I was to ask you, have the coin change, is it less in value? The answer is no, the value of the coin is still the same because it’s still the same coin even before and after we saw it. It’s the feeling of wanting to know, the feeling that we can’t reach, the feeling that we can’t have that is making something valuable, but once we know what it is, we no longer see the importance of it.
As for certain individual that we thought highly of because s/he is popular, everyone want to get to know, want to be closed to, but once we engaged in conversation, we know right away that there is nothing special about that person, sometimes thing is not what it seems. This holds true for many celebrities, everyone want to get to know them because they look good, have a sense of humor, but once you have a chance to sit down and have a hart to hart talk, there is nothing special about that person, they are very ordinary, they can’t think for themselves but arrogant, those feelings that you have at the very beginning sort of vanished, you no longer want to know them.
Sometimes the reverse holds true, have you ever met someone that is very plain, living a simple life, and very ordinary, but once you engaged in conversation with that person, the conversation is enriching and you can tell that this person is not ordinary after all, there is something special there. You start to show interest, wanting to engage in conversation with that person again. Why? I think might be the goodness in that person that shines, that they are very giving, and people like this we all need in our lives, we want to hold on to them as long as we could. We often treat people according to how we value them, valuing people mean that we treat each person as an individual, with respect and sometimes actions speak louder than words.
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 19, 2008 at 11:32 am
Rhyan
There’s this movie I saw not long ago, “The Tao Of Steve,” which contains similar idea. We chase after things that are hard to attain. Steve used that same idea in his courting ritual, and women flocked to his side.
February 19, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Ginger
Hi Rhyan, I have not seen the movie but from looking at the cover it is a bit scary to me, might not be something that I would enjoy watching, I think I’ll pass. I believed that this concept is very similar to our dream, the face of reality is not as pretty and exciting as dream, and we work hard trying to reach that dream, but once we reached there, and it becomes reality, some of us find ourselves loosing interest because it’s now the reality, I think it’s the thrill of the chase sometimes.
February 19, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Bob
That Rhyan and his romantic comedy, it gets me. Sometimes he calls me up and say, “Bob, there’s this funny movie out there you need to come see with me. Afterward, we can get some Guinness and do some guy things. And I say ‘what guy things?’ And he says, well, ‘like you know, what grizzly or male buck do…go off somewhere, find a lone tree to sharpen their claws or antlers.” It great to have friends like Rhyan, who enjoys the lighter side of life.
By the way Ginger, I saw the second movie cover…don’t think that one was on the theatre display window when Rhyan dragged me to see the movie with him. I believe Seiji went and saw this with his female friend, and now she knows the secret behind the “The Tao of Steve.” Bummer! This was supposed to be a guy secret, like the scene from Magnolia of “Frank T. J. Mackey Infomercial.”
“…I think it’s the thrill of the chase sometimes.” I agree with you most definitely. Maybe this is also why young girls get the hearts broken so easily, chasing after the ‘bad boys.’
February 19, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Bob
Hi Ginger, since Rhyan had brought in “The Tao Of Steve” as his example, I want to share with you an excerpt from a book I’m currently listening to which parallels this same idea on your post. I’m what you call ‘an audio book reader.’ The book is “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” The scene in the book goes as follow:
…When he brought his motorcycle over I got my wrenches out but then noticed that no amount of tightening would stop the slippage, because the ends of the collars were pinched shut.
“You’re going to have to shim those out,” I said.
“What’s shim?”
“It’s a thin, flat strip of metal. You just slip it around the handlebar under the collar there and it will open up the collar to where you can tighten it again. You use shims like that to make adjustments in all kinds of machines.”
“Oh,” he said. He was getting interested. “Good. Where do you buy them?”
“I’ve got some right here,” I said gleefully, holding up a can of beer in my hand.
He didn’t understand for a moment. Then he said, “What, the can?”
“Sure,” I said, “best shim stock in the world.”
I thought this was pretty clever myself. Save him a trip to God knows where to get shim stock. Save him time. Save him money.
But to my surprise he didn’t see the cleverness of this at all. In fact he got noticeably haughty about the whole thing. Pretty soon he was dodging and filling with all kinds of excuses and, before I realized what his real attitude was, we had decided not to fix the handlebars after all.
As far as I know those handlebars are still loose. And I believe now that he was actually offended at the time. I had had the nerve to propose repair of his new eighteen-hundred dollar BMW, the pride of a half-century of German mechanical finesse, with a piece of old beer can!
Ach, du lieber!
Since then we have had very few conversations about motorcycle maintenance. None, now that I think of it…
It’s very interesting to me how John’s attitude shifted when he found out that the ‘shim’ his friend was going to use came from a simple beer can and not some ‘expensive, priceless, brand-name’ piece of something.
The next excerpt that follows rectify the whole point very clearly:
…For a while I thought what I should have done was sneak over to the workbench, cut a shim from the beer can, remove the printing and then come back and tell him we were in luck, it was the last one I had, specially imported from Germany. That would have done it. A special shim from the private stock of Baron Alfred Krupp, who had to sell it at a great sacrifice. Then he would have gone gaga over it…
It’s an excellent book. I read it a few years back, and listening to it again at work simply takes your mind off what you’re doing and makes time go by so much faster. If you want to read it online, here’s the site:
http://virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/
February 20, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Ginger
Bob, Interesting story of “Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.,” I’ll listen to the audio book when I have more time, thanks for the link.
As for the manly thingy that you’re talking about, I’m not very familiar with, and never hang out with anyone like Rhyan, must be one of a kind.