Scriptures

by Nick Yee

There is a Confucian saying that manors of gold and maidens as fair as jade can be found within the scriptures. In the mind of my parents, and indeed every parent in the village, distinguished scholarship was the only true success. People were differentiated not by their inherent intelligence, but by their willingness to sacrifice everything to reach this goal. Failing your first lesson would lower your chances of doing well in your second lesson, and would eventually lead to a life of abject misery. Any meandering off this path was tantamount to accepting a life of failure. And a child who grows up with these beliefs sees no other alternative. And I was one of many of these children.

I fought hard to stay on the path because there was a happiness at the end that was the only happiness that I knew of. It was the only happiness that was allowed. It were as if even the possibility of achieving that happiness were enough reason to forfeit any other reason to live.

I found scriptures that spoke of happiness derived from meditation or subtle interpretations of ancient poetry, and I followed these scriptures to the word, but I never derived happiness from them. There were archaic formulas for herbal potions said to bring the body into an euphoric state, but these too I concocted from exotic insects and mushrooms, yet I never sensed euphoria.

Over years, I had memorized and recited hundreds of scriptures and poems from the previous dynasties in preparation for the civil service exam. The exam was the last step before happiness - before the success, the wealth and the maidens as fair as jade. And yet I pondered the painful path I had traveled on; I wondered whether any journey of unhappiness could really lead me to anywhere but unhappiness. I was tortured by the fear that if I hadn't found happiness in the poems or herbal potions like it was written in the texts, that I might not find happiness even if I passed the exam.

And as I placed my first few brush strokes on the exam papers, I realized that there never was an "I" in the scriptures - that there never was an "I" in the happiness described in the scriptures. I realized that the scriptures were written by people who had found happiness, but not for people to find happiness from. I realized that all this time I had denied the existence of any other kind of happiness. And as I began to compose the eight-legged poem, I was happy for the first time in my life because I had become aware of a happiness that was mine.