Review on Tuesdays with Morrie

Love Always Wins
A review on Tuesdays with Morrie

It is a small book, it is a big book; it tells a sad story, it tells a joyous story; it discusses death, it discusses life. Tuesdays with Morrie, an easy book to read, but indicates profound meanings. Morrie, the hero of the book, has a lethal illness, to which medicine could do nothing. Despite this, he chooses not to withdraw from the world, but to live ---- or at least try to live ---- with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure, and so he does. Face the reality and fight against fate! It sounds like 1990s, so old and strange, while Morrie¡¯s story brings this back to me. What is reality? To Morrie, it is doomed to die within no more than two years. What is fate? To Morrie, it is to die gradually until someday even his lung atrophies. For all that is happening to him, however, his voice is strong and inviting, and his mind is vibrating with a million thoughts. He intends to prove that the word ¡°dying¡± is not synonymous with ¡°useless¡±. There are hundreds and thousands of tribulations in the world, as deafness to Beethoven, like blind to Helen Keller, to polio to Roosevelt. While we face them directly and combat fearlessly, sufferings can be turned into catalyst to success. I am so lucky that I¡¯ve never confronted these trials so far in my life, and I¡¯ve never considered myself as such a tough girl to be able to conquer them. However, Morrie, the dying professor, convinces me that so long as you embrace love, there is nothing impossible! And love seems to be another ¡°out-of-day¡° thing in today¡¯s material life. However, I become more and more involved with love as Morrie¡¯s story goes on. Love for ourselves makes us feel great. As to Morrie, he considers that to watch his body slowly wilt away to nothing is Wonderful, ¡°because of all the time I get to say goodbye.¡± If not for love, how can so pathetic thing become luck? We are human beings, not Saint, neither God. Love ourselves, so there is no need to cry for our failures, to pity for our defects, as we¡¯ll see how many efforts we¡¯ve spared to fulfill the task that eventually turns out to be a failure, we¡¯ll know how much progress we¡¯ve made to improve our personalities. Love ourselves, so we can see those shining points inside ourselves thus we shall have enormous confidence and we are to be invulnerable. Yes, that¡¯s the power of love! Turn the ugly duck into a swan! What¡¯s more, love for others makes we feel even better. As Morrie once said,¡± giving to other people is what makes me feel alive.¡± The truth is, we don¡¯t even need to have a big talent to do this. Looking around, we can easily find plenty of places where we can show love for each other. There are lonely people in hospitals and shelters who want some companionship. We play cards with a lonely old man and we¡¯ll find new respect for ourselves. As a matter of fact, if we are ever going to have other people love us, we must feel that we can love them, too ---- even when we¡¯re depressed, even when we¡¯re dying. Last but not least is the love for life. Some people never cling to things, as Buddhist says¡± Everything is impermanent.¡± Others may hold their emotions back as to detach themselves. The problem is, if we don¡¯t allow ourselves to experience, we can never get to being detached, as we¡¯re too busy being afraid. Morrie¡¯s solution to this is that we should ¡°let the experience penetrate us fully. That¡¯s how we are able to leave it.¡± Throw ourselves into those emotions, allow ourselves to dive in, all the way, over our head even, we experience them fully and completely. We know what pain is, what love is, what grief is, and only then can we say, ¡°All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.¡± Poet Auden once said¡±Love each other or perish.¡± We may stereotype love as something soft and feminine, while love is actually tough and masculine. It is the cornerstone of our society. If our life can be compared to a battle, then the winner must be love, Love always wins!