How Do You Live?

by Genzaburo Yoshino

If a rightful ruler loses his throne, he will think himself unfortunate and be sad that he has no throne. He will be sad for his present self, because he who should have a throne now has none. Similarly, a one-eyed man also feels unfortunate, because although we expect human beings to be born with two eyes, he lacks that. If people naturally had only one eye, you can be sure that nobody would be crying over being one-eyed. No, on the contrary, people who had been born with two eyes would be crying at the thought of being deformed. Copper, we must try to think deeply about this. There are important truths to be found here. They can teach us much about the meaning of human sadness and suffering. As we move through our lives as human beings, all of us, young and old, encounter sadness, hardship, and pain, each in our own way. Of course, those are not things anyone ever wishes for. But it is thanks to sadness, hardship, and pain that we come to know what a true human being is.

This relates to the proof from morality argument for the existence of God, which I find persuasive. We have regret because we know we should ne better. A tree has no regrets and a tree does not aspire to greatness.