Two Sundays ago, I went to watch the movie, “Fearless”. It was a film based on the life of the martial arts legend, Huo Yuan Chia. It chronicles his ascent to the top, his inevitable stumble, his redemption, and his dream. It was a great movie even though the plot was both simple and predictable. The drama was intense and I would say that this movie is Jet Li’s opus. Anyway, what really got into me was neither the great storyline nor the breathtaking martial art fight scenes but the philosophies being expounded by the movie. The philosophies has an under current of Sino – Buddhist thinking but I felt that they are universally applicable. One of the philosophies being expounded is that “one’s life is not his/her business alone but everybody’s business because everybody has a stake in it”. Although we are ultimately responsible for our life, for the path we chose and for the things we do but to our parents, our siblings, our children, our friends, and all the people who cared and loved us, our choices, our actions very much affected them as it affected us. In fact, it so affected them that when the time comes that we have to go “away”, they would feel a great and terrible “loss” even if we can no longer care what will happen. Hence, can we say that “they” don’t have a stake in our existence? Yes, they do! And if so, don’t they have the responsibility to ensure that our “lives” don’t go “astray” or “wasted”? Of course, they do! On a bigger context, if we expound this philosophy further to incorporate the entire humanity. We come to the conclusion that the life of one person whatever his race, his creed, his belief maybe, is not his responsibility alone but also the responsibility of the other 7,999,999,999 people on this planet (assuming that we have a population of 8 billion). We may not personally know him/her and most likely, we may not like him/her much less love him/her but we all have a stake in that person’s existence. It is not because of the fear that that one person would become the next Hitler or some mad genius or some radical terrorist that is bent to destroy humanity to avenge his troubled life rather that we “care” because we are human. Mencius once said that “Man’s basic nature is good, for our first instinct when we saw a child that has fallen to the well is to try to save them regardless whose child is he”. It is our basic instinct to care for our fellow human even if that person is insignificant to affect our lives. To deny our basic nature, our instinct is to deny our humanity. However, this philosophy is prone to grave abuse. We could “interfere” other people’s lives in the name of “caring” and “concern” to the extent that we didn’t only trample on that person’s rights and happiness but also practically run their lives as well. How we could prevent this from happening? How we could make sure that our well – meaning help didn’t constitute as interference in their lives? Well, the movie answered that with the analogy of the rice paddies. Rice paddies should be spaced at a certain distance from each other in order to grow. It’s the same thing with humans. Interfering too much would only stunt their “growth”. We must give them “space” to grow, to learn, and to live life to the fullest. Now, with that in mind, comes the next question, “when do we interfere?” Frankly, I am not quite sure of my own answers. If I may venture a guess, we interfere when that person doesn’t “grow” anymore. We had to point the way, provide guides, “teach” them, “enlightened” them so that they could continue growing. Or perhaps, we could altogether do away with “interference”. We could simply “remove” the obstacle to that growth much like removing that protruding rock that blocks out the sunlight that nourishes the plant. In life, there are many “obstacles” indeed and there are also many ways to deal with the obstacles. However, there are only a few of us who possessed the capability and the resources to remove those formidable obstacles, which is why Confucius say that of the responsibility of a gentlemen, “to carry the weight of society until his demise (ren jong er tau yuan).” The responsibility however is too much for “a” gentlemen and which is why that “life is not one man’s business but everybody else.” We need everybody’s help to live life.
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