The Lexicon

I’ve always liked the idea of having a bonsai garden when I retire. It’s one of those little dreams I’d like to cultivate over time. And if I never get to have one, I hope I can at least visit one.

Do you know the fable of the cat and the monkey? A clever monkey persuades the cat to pull chestnuts from the fire. While the cat burns its paw retrieving them, the monkey eats them all, leaving the cat with nothing.It’s a story that has always struck me as a good reminder that, sometimes, we are the ones who put our paws in the fire while someone else ends up enjoying the reward.

Well, everything comes to an end at some point, doesn’t it? Some things last longer than others, but sooner or later, everything ends. And perhaps that is also part of what makes them special.

How sad that, in this life, the example of crabs in a market seems to be more common than it should. When one tries to escape, the others, instead of helping it out, pull it back in. A sad image that, unfortunately, can also be found among us.

Many speak of the path, and of how each person has a path of their own. But sometimes I wonder: did even those who chose to do evil find their own dao? If dao simply means “the way,” then perhaps not every path leads to the same place, nor is every path we find necessarily a good one.

We all seek it, yet no one seems to attain it. In the end, people even say that if everything is going well, we are probably doing something wrong. Perhaps perfection isn’t about getting everything right, but about knowing that there is always something to learn, adjust, or improve.

Everyone talks about equality and equity, but I prefer the idea of equivalence. I often think about Laplace’s demon and wonder whether all societies, regardless of their size, ultimately face benefits and challenges that have some equivalent elsewhere. Not necessarily in the same way, but perhaps in proportion to the scale at which they exist.

“Cut the child in two!” To win, must we be willing to lose? Perhaps the real test is not how much we are willing to gain, but what we are willing to lose to get it.

Believe it or not, they taste good with both butter and ice cream. Some combinations may sound strange until you dare to try them.

Do we have time? Was it given to us, or was it merely lent to us? Perhaps we will never know how much we truly have, only that, sooner or later, we will have to give it back.

A representation of death or of wisdom? At the end of the day, both can be sources of happiness or sadness. Perhaps that is why the owl has always seemed to me a difficult figure to place in a single category: it can represent what enlightens us, or what reminds us that everything has an ending.

In Siddhartha, there is a discussion of configurations. I like to think that perhaps we are configurations too: shaped by everything we have lived through, learned, lost, and found. Something that never remains exactly the same.

Everything in life seems to move in cycles. For one empire to rise, another must fall. Machiavelli speaks of the wheels of fate; in the end, perhaps we are like chickens in a coop: sometimes we are up, and sometimes we are down.

This is the name given to the Dol Hareubang, the stone grandfather who watches over Jeju Island, a deeply feminine island, according to Malvavisco. I like the idea of this figure as a silent guardian: present, steadfast, and always there without needing to say a word.

A hole in the ground can be used to bury someone who has left this world, or to plant a tree that will bring life. It is the same hole; we are the ones who give it a purpose and a meaning.

As a delegate, does that mean you accompany, or do you lead? The guest or the host? In the end, you are one among everyone else, yet you carry a title that seems to suggest you are something more.