Meaningful

A wise master once said that training the secret arts is much like excavating an ancient ruin. In the ruin can be found a hidden city with jewels a treasures that are almost unimaginable. Once we return to the surface to proclaim our discoveries, we find that the world doesn't understand a word that we are saying. As if touching these treasures has somehow changed our ability to communicate with those who are unwilling to explore themselves.

My own metaphor carries the same meaning but differs slightly. The martial arts is like a magnificent lap top computer that can be used to solve any problem if you enter the right data. However people continually treat this lap top as a plate for food. Piling spaghetti and meatballs along the keys of their computer as they brag about how many meaningless fights they have won. In the end they have completely destroyed their art for something much less valuable in return.

Many masters would say that it is better that these arts are not found, that it protects them from being contaminated and destroyed much like what has happened to Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do and soon Jujitsu. The world we live in now is obsessed with a life of no meaning. We must have the best education, so we can have the best job, the most money, the most beautiful wife and on and on. These goals only cause us to deteriorate because even our education is contaminated to the deepest roots. A "well educated" man in many ways has been dragged the furthest away from the truth of many things. Most jobs that we can find are only designed to make a company rich that enforces modern day slavery. Money is the tool used to keep us from thinking about anything that actually matters. As long as we continue running around doing our best to find out how to fit into this circus, we have no chance of identifying what we would require in a spouse  because we have no way of identifying ourself.  To put it simply, we are lost and loving it.

It isn't that money, education or even belongings are negative. Yet to chase after anything without meaning can only lead to the dark. It causes us to crave for more of something that can never be satiated. These goals without meaning encourage us to be greedy and vain.

Who has time for kung fu when we are so busy with the chaos? Should I go the route of many masters and let go of the idea of passing these treasures to an ungrateful generation? I have always had a deep love for humans and our potential. But the potential is like a fruit that is embraced in a crown of thorns. The most important factor of anyone's potential is their awareness of it.

Maybe the world needs another test before they are able to see their true value. Unfortunately strife has always been the key factor to finding character. This storm has already been promised to come, and my opinion about it will not differ it from happening. There will come a time when people will be stripped of their distractions and forced to face their true self. For most, it will be unbearable and insanity will be their only way of coping. Before this time comes, I beg you to look at what you are doing. Ask yourself who you are doing it for. Make the most of every moment. One day you may look back at these times of "discomfort" and find that it was actually the best time of your life. Train to be useful, live your life to love and pray for direction.

Kung fu only means "time and effort." It doesn't matter what kind of kung fu you are training. What matters is that you are training for something meaningful.