Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Hope on the Edge

When you’re a kid, there’s this game some adults play with you. They hold out a fist to you and ask you to guess what they hold within. So you guess – a chocolate! a marble! And some adults give you whatever it is they brought. But there were others. Others who made you peel back their fingers, one by one, till you can see the treasure they hold, till you can grasp it within your own small fist.

Life is like this I think. A fist held out to you, fingers to be peeled back one by one. Yet the difference is you’re no longer a child. You hope for the chocolate, the coloured marble, but somewhere in the back of your mind you know there could be something nasty, something sick. Yet, since hope is a funny thing, you peel back the fingers anyway.

Some are fast enough to find a glittery treasure within a few minutes, whilst others spend their whole life without once catching sight of anything beautiful. Some catch sight of a pretty shade and grasp it only to find that the colour fades too soon. Some peel back the fingers to find that the fist held nothing at all.

However, there are lucky ones among us. The ones who find the marble. The marble with the stripe of colours held tight within the glass. In this marble of life, that stripe is a Mobius strip – one-sided, one edged. Bits of it we walk the right way up, bits of upside down, but all of it on the same path. There’s only one very small challenge in walking through this colourfully marbled world. Whether one breaks into dance on the right-way-up bits or gets too dizzy on the upside-down bits, we need to stay away from the edge.

For beyond that edge, hope does not exist. And fists will never be extended again.

9 comments:

Turtle said...

OMG how can you write something like this and not LOVE mrs.dalloway???

thank you for the great launching pad into my paper (hehe it's all about ME!!)

Turtle said...

to clarify the above incoherence: i meant i liked it!!!

Anonymous said...

ahhh. love your allegories. :) lets try this one out for size...

life taught you to be wary of what it holds; but you taught yourself to accept this - to peel apart the fingers anyway. life told you that an edge exists beyond which you have no hope; you told yourself that every edge has a surface next to it, on which one may break into dance...

...in short, you have learned to look for corollaries. so from my point of view, your're a very lucky person. you learned because people offered you things.

when i was small, all a closed fist meant was that a fast sucker-punch was coming my way... all that life taught ME was how to duck.

thank you for the post.

Kaiser Kobayashi said...

My my, just when i thought i had the manshark figured...

This is by far the best post i've ever read on your pretty little blog...i read it over and over again...its simply breath taking! i honestly loved it...cant put a finger on Why i do..i just...do!

Nice read! Seriously. takecare and see you soon...btw you still have a chatterbox...(hint hint)

Anonymous said...

Hey, hey, fantastic blog! Girl, you ok? Your phones switched off these days.....can you ring me?

by the way, I love your message on your voicemail...you funny girl...I'm going to miss you! :(

Manshark said...

Turtle: I obviously need to do something about my confidence, neda? *blush* Tnx! :o)

Jokerman: Thank you..and you're welcome! :o) Re:sucker-punches: maybe that's cos, in life, there are heaps of times you do need to duck..however, wouldn't it be a shame to let those "sucker-punches" some ppl carry around let you lose sight of all the marbles that others may have had for you? And sometimes, if you duck too quickly, you might miss out on the hugs also! ;o)

Dimi: A compliment?? *going into shock* ..but good to know you enjoyed the post! And tnx for the reminder..shall get back on the chatterbox asap! :o)

Carla: Oh god, so very sorry!! :o( Will ring you tonight..did you have the baby yet?!? :o) (and yes, I'm gonna miss you too! :o(

Anonymous said...

exactly. and now you know how i lost my marbles. :P

Manshark said...

Grrr! (as I said before!) ;op

Anonymous said...

Again,you write very, very well.Please see my comment on above entry.

Goodluck.