I have six articles already written out and I thought today that I would publish one of them. But in the meantime I read a few pages of Lin Yutang’s classic book – The Importance of Living. And I came across a passage that is so relevant and meaningful that I decided to make that today’s article.
I hope I am not breaking any copyright laws but I simply have to tell you about this passage and have you read it. I am sure you can relate to it:
Man has not learned to live with woman, since history began. The strange thing is that no man has lived without a woman, in spite of that fact. No man can speak disparagingly of woman if he realizes that no one has come into this world without a mother. From birth to death, he is surrounded by women, as mother, wife and daughters, and even if he does not marry, he has still to depend on his sister, like William Wordsworth, or depend on his housekeeper, like Herbert Spencer. No fine philosophy is going to save his soul if he cannot establish a proper relationship with his mother or his sister, and if he cannot establish a proper relationship even withhis housekeeper, may God have pity on him!
There is a certain pathos in a man who has not arrived at a proper relationship with woman and who has led a warped moral life, like Oscar Wilde, who still exclaims, “Man cannot live with a woman, nor can he live without her!” So that it seems human wisdom has not progressed an inch farther between the writer of a Hindu tale and Oscar Wilde at the beginning of the twentieth century, for that writer of the Hindu tale of the Creation expressed essentially the same thought four thousand years ago.
According to this story of the Creation, in creating woman, God took of the beauty of the flowers, the song of the birds, the colors of the rainbow, the kiss of the breeze, the laughter of the waves, the gentleness of the lamb, the cunning of the fox, the waywardness of the clouds and the fickleness of the shower, and wove them into a female being and presented her to man as his wife. And the Hindu Adam was happy and he and his wife roved about on the beautiful earth. After a few days, Adam came to God and said, “Take this woman away from me, for I cannot live with her.” And God listened to his request and took Eve away. Adam then became lonely and was still unhappy, and after a few days he came to God again and said, “Give me back my woman, for I cannot live without her.” Again God listened to his request and returned him Eve. After a few days again, Adam came to God and asked, “Please take back this Eve that Thou has created, for I swear I cannot live with her.” In His infinite wisdom God again consented. When finally Adam came a fourth time and complained that he could not live without his female companion, God made him promise that he was not going to change his mind again and that he was going to throw in his lot with her. for better and for worse, and live together on this earth as best they knew how. I do not think the picture has essentially changed much, even today.
The only thing I have to add is that in this age of Kalyug and with man having inherited his instincts from millions of years of evolution it is not possible for humanity to change in the way Lin Yutang would have liked. So all of us have to live with troubled relationships with women in our lives.
Here is the link to Lin Yutang’s book. I highly recommend it
I’ll end here. Please share this article in WA, FB and Twitter and let me have your comments. Feedback from my readers keeps me going.
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