A book that came out the year you were born
The Giver 1993
With the chant, Jonas knew, the community
was accepting him and his new role, giving him life, the way they had given it
to the new child Caleb. His heart swelled with gratitude and pride.
But at the same time he was filled with
fear. He did not know what his selection meant. He did not know what he was to
become.
Or what would become of him.
On this rainy and gloomy day I went to Taipei
city to have a afternoon tea date with Paula. At the bus station for a moment I
felt that there’s so many people struggling for life. Life could really be as
tough as it should be. And I thought of The Giver, wondering how it really
feels like in a community without all the choices. Maybe I’ll live just fine.
Maybe everyone will.
The book is really the one that keeps me pondering
about it all the time. It’s simply beautifully tragic. Or not. As the ending
could be totally different versions on its own.
“It was sunburn,” the old man told him.
“It hurts a lot,” Jonas said,” but I’m glad
you gave it to me. It was interesting. And now I understand better, what it
meant, that there would be pain.”
The old man didn’t respond. He sat silently
for a second. Finally he said,“ Get up, now. It’s time for you to go home.”
This was what Jonas learned in his first
lesson. They told him there would be lots of pain in his training. Later I’d
learn that the pain was being able to feel while no one else can. And learning
that life was perfect and wasn’t perfect. Hunger and death and people hurting
each other. But at that time he had no idea what it was. That’s when the giver
gave him the memory of sunburn. Which was really sad, the fact that sunburn is
nothing beyond pain in our lives. I felt deep sorrow and I wished sunburn was
the only pain. Life there was so orderly, so predictable – so painless. Sometimes
I don’t feel any bad about that. The difference of each and every human being
makes so many disputes, so many hates, and so much pain. Of course I still love
all the colors, all the happy feelings, all the art and music, all the love and
all that. It would be really plain and boring without seasons and cultures. It’s
just that I start to understand why a utopian society leaves so many
discussions. It’s a choice that we make as well, we choose to live with all the
difference which leads to all the business and free trading and different
countries, just as the community of the book chose the life they lived. We just
have to face what we’ve chosen.
The life where nothing was over unexpected.
Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past.
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