No New Life Is Conceived in a Fishbowl

How harmoniously God made this world; the changes of all things are truly mysterious. When spring comes, cherry blossoms bloom, and when winter comes, snow falls. The environment changes constantly, enough that living things might seem destined for extinction, yet as if it were the most natural thing in the world, life evolves and the world moves a step forward. People, perhaps because they admire something of God’s nature, often try to imitate such acts of creation. Making an aquarium at home is one example. But raising fish in an aquarium is no simple matter. You must constantly supply air, change the water, and keep managing the environment. Even when you work hard to maintain a habitat in which the fish can thrive, they die easily. And no matter how well you care for it, new life is rarely conceived there, and a different kind of life is never born.

The world runs on invisible forces that we do not perceive. A raindrop that was high in the sky yesterday becomes deep ocean water at the very bottom of the sea the next day, and the spring water a squirrel drank moments ago becomes, through the squirrel, the water of life for a new sprout. In a world moved by invisible forces, there is nothing that is dirty or clean, noble or base. As it flows by these unseen forces, water that was light gradually becomes heavy, and heavy water gradually becomes light. Water simply flows as it does, yet within that flow new life is conceived and living beings multiply.

In a pond, new life is conceived, but in an aquarium, it is not. No matter how splendidly you make an aquarium, no matter how vigorously you stir it with your hand, life is not conceived in that current. The same is true even if you churn the tank with the latest motor. But in a remote mountain valley that no one visits, frogs and fish live well enough without anyone’s help, and their kind multiplies. The difference is very simple. It depends only on whether life relies on visible forces or invisible ones. The world we live in is the same. If we want the world we live in to be beautiful, if we want to make it a world fit for human life, we must create not a pretty aquarium but an unremarkable pond.

I keep many cats. I raise them without confining them to my room. What I do is very simple: I place a dipperful of water in front of my house so that the neighborhood cats can stop by for a drink as they pass. Then the passing cats quench their thirst, and passersby wash their hands. It makes me happy when those cats visit my house and glance at me from time to time. I like that they see me drawing water and remember me. I like that through the little dipper I have set out, they go on living and take on meaning in my life. Because I like cats, I also like their freedom. That is why I do not want to keep cats as pets. It is better that we become meaningful presences in each other’s lives simply by greeting one another every day with our eyes.

The principle of a world fit for human life is no different. Governments always say they love and care for the people, yet what they dream of first is constraining freedom. They seek to confine citizens within a controlled framework, attractively arranged like an aquarium. Telling people to do this and do that, they increase regulations. Such actions only make life harder for the people. Even if it may seem like chaos, people want to live together in a rough and tumble world. In the uniform methods imposed by government, people instead suffocate or fall into confusion. Even when the government says the economy needs liquidity and recklessly expands the money supply, it ultimately only disrupts the economic ecosystem and leaves people’s lives more exhausting.

What is truly needed is simple. It is to allow people to create order for themselves and live by relying on invisible forces. Rather than trying to confine people within a standardized way of life that the government deems desirable, what is needed is to allow them the freedom to find their own lives for themselves. Freedom—new life—is conceived there.

Kyungmo Son

Chairman, Jayu Inmun Hakhoe

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Original title: 어항에선 새 생명이 잉태되지 않는다

Author: Kyung-mo Son

Date: 2018-04-18

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=17&idx=10887