Happy Birthday #32
Mortal Shrug
This was always one of my mother’s favorite parables:
A wise old monk is on his deathbed. His disciples gather to hear his final words. “Life,” he finally proclaims, “is like a river.” His message reverberates through the crowd of acolytes, each monk musing on its wisdom. Finally, the koan reaches the youngest monk far in the back. “What does he mean? How is life like a river??” the young monk pipes up, a bit naively. The question ripples back up through the crowd to the dying monk’s bedside. “What do you mean, old wise one? How is life like a river?” The old monk thinks for a long time, so long that many fear he has already passed. But finally a thin, irritated smile appears on his lips. “Okay,” he shrugs, “So maybe life’s not like a river.”
My Mom loved this story, and so do I, though I’d never considered what makes it so funny and wise.
Obviously, there’s a number of ways to interpret what it’s all about:
It would be overly cynical to read it as a clear-eyed nihilistic youth calling out the fraudulent authority of his mystical elders. This is not an emperor-has-no-clothes story.
But it would be overly earnest to take the old monk at his word, or mistake his platitude for philosophy. The story can serve as fable, joke, or koan, but not as truth.
Best, I think, to see the old monk in a moment of grace and acceptance and most of all humor; that at the end of a lifetime of contemplation and teaching, a lifelong search for enlightenment and understanding, the closest we get to true wisdom is a smile, a shrug and a confession that no, we really don’t have a fucking clue what it’s all about.
Life is like a river.
Thirty-two years ago, I rushed out of my mother’s womb and into the currents. Through the calm creek of childhood, the exciting white waters of youth, and now toward my prime, where the river is widest and the horizon most full of promise.
It reminds me of a series of paintings by Thomas Cole, “The Voyage of Life”.
My mother’s river ended this year, but not her voyage; she merely reached the sea. I can’t see her as clearly anymore, but I still catch the gleam of the sun on her sails sometimes when I look out at where the sky and waters meet. The wind, too, often bears her presence from far downstream.
The currents this year have not been kind, to my father and brother and I, but we paddle on. Time and again I begin to find my stride, begin to regain balance; and yet time and again I spin out of control, rudderless and raw. The waves heave and spray — even now as I write this my cheeks are wet, and I sometimes fear I have sprung a leak that I cannot bear to seal, a hole that can never be plugged.
Okay, so maybe life’s not like a river.
Maybe it’s where the metaphor ends that life actually begins. Or maybe life is the metaphor, and only on the brink of death can we, like the monk, realize it for what it is.
Maybe none of it means anything. Maybe Mom is not a voice on the wind or a glimmer on the horizon, just a meaningless memory shared by the thousands of meaningless humans she touched in this great, beautiful, meaningless universe.
At the end of the day (or at the end of our lives, or our rivers, or whatever) perhaps the very best we can hope for is not truth (for we will never have truth) nor an escape from pain (for there will always be pain) but rather a little bit of grace and humor to make it all worthwhile.
My mother spent her life teaching and learning and searching for meaning; yet she died knowing no greater purpose and no deeper truth than when she began. What she left us with was grace and humor, a mortal shrug and a smile.
On my birthday I look at where I’ve come from, where I am, and where I want to be. I know this year that I come from her, that I am her, and that I want to be just as she was when my river meets the sea.
In the meantime, life goes on, and for all its pain it is a very good life.
I have been on the move almost constantly this year, flying over 100,000 miles to interpret, teach, speak, eat, drink, hustle, laugh, love and cry on four different continents, surrounded almost always by excellent people that I care for tremendously.
I continue my work as an interpreter, heeding the advice of one of my mother’s favorite poems: “Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.” High-profile gigs since my last birthday include interpreting for Angela Merkel and Matt Damon. I have also joined as a partner in a global interpretation business, Cadence, which gives me a platform to do business development and partnerships in addition to my regular role in the booth.
Due in part to all the cross-border activity in my own life, I’ve become increasingly fascinated with the concept of “mobility”: how we move, and how our movement impacts us as individuals, organizations, and societies. Over the past year I’ve begun speaking, writing, and hosting events about these themes, and recently co-launched Mobility+, a thought-leadership platform for millennial mobility issues.
The 1% Pledge, a giving circle I co-founded in Beijing, is supporting an organization called B.E.A.M. this year, which empowers hundreds of teachers in rural China using an innovative mix of digital tools and peer community-building. Please contact me if you’d like to make a donation to them as a birthday gift! If you just can’t wait to give to a good cause, you can also support our partner organization from last year, Education in Sight, which delivers eye exams to poor children in the mountains.
There’s also my work with the Global Shapers Community, which has become like a big international family to me, and another half-dozen little projects in the works, all of which keep me skipping along the river with curiosity, whimsy, and plumb. I feel happiness often, grief occasionally, and boredom never.
Last year on my birthday I wrote about seeking continuity and extension; this year, I can’t help but hope for a bit of departure. It really has been tough, these past months, but we are stronger than we know and made stronger still by the friends and loved ones in our lives. So many of you have comforted me over this past year, whether with your hugs, your words, or merely your existence.
If on my deathbed I have the grace and humor to look back at it all as my mother did — without fear or regret, only wonder and appreciation and a sad accepting kindness — then it will be because of the fortitude and joy that I draw from having you all in my life.
Cry a river with me for my Mom in the meantime.
I love you all, and may the wind be forever at your back.
Jonathan
