“You know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, I sometimes wonder what it must feel like to die little by little over a long period of time. What do you think?”Unsure exactly what she was getting at, I changed my grip on the hand strap and looked into her eyes. “Can you give me a concrete example of what you mean by that-to die little by little?”
“Well... I don’t know. You’re trapped in the dark all alone, with nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and little by little you die....”
“It must be terrible,” I said. “Painful. I wouldn’t want to die like that if I could help it.”
“But finally, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, isn’t that just what life is? Aren’t we all trapped in the dark somewhere, and they’ve taken away our food and water, and we’re slowly dying, little by little ... ?”
I laughed. “You’re too young to be so ... pessimistic,” 1 said, using the English word.
“Pessi-what?”
“Pessimistic. It means looking only at the dark side of things.”
“Pessimistic ... pessimistic ...” She repeated the English to herself over and over, and then she looked up at me with a fierce glare. “I’m only sixteen,” she said, “and I don’t know much about the world, but I do know one thing for sure. If I’m pessimistic, then the adults in this world who are not pessimistic are a bunch of idiots.”----------------------------------------------------- Murakami, Haruki - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Pessimism - Thursday, September 07, 2006 -
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