Our sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest thought...

I live for correspondence with news from my friends... They have become one of my extended family. They are the root system that keep me anchored and in touch with reality. Certainly a reason for living when everything seems false.... It leads me to believe that perhaps there is more to life than all the pain and suffering...

Life in this world, with all its joys and difficulties, pleasures and pains, was not made to last forever. That is why we often hear the paradox that the only thing that ever remains constant is change... School ends, work begins. We make new friends, we lose old ones. We move to different places or the neighborhood itself undergoes a change. Loss and gain alike touch us with sadness, reminding us that nothing here in this world is permanent.

We fail to realize how brief our time on earth will be..! Who is to be blamed..?...God, ourselves or the cosmic clock...?.. Our life is no longer than our hands. Our whole lifetime is but a moment. We are not permanent, as children are born , the elderly pass away, and eventually one generation gives way to another....

The ways that people respond to sensing the world's imperfections and their own mortality are as varied as the pastimes and philosophies and the epic legends and folklore that have existed throughout time. Some people dedicate themselves to an ideal or a cause while others try to enjoy the most of every moment. 

Still others, seeking for some sense of security, spend their entire lives laboring for material goals and occupational advancement...

the fast changing world... 

In the midst of this fast-changing world, the desperate pursuit of the basic necessities for survival have the ironic effect of sometimes helping us forget the inevitability of days. But even if we can make ourselves forget about the past, if only for a little while, what kind of life do we experience in this world?..

Life is a constant struggle - making ends meet, supporting a family, supporting oneself. Other than brief moments of rest and even briefer interludes of happiness, man's life is filled with labor, toil, day in and day out, year in and year out, until the day...

We see good people dying young by accidents or illness while cruel people always have a great time. Some men have very great wealth and honor, so that they can have everything they want, but most do not have the health to enjoy it, and they die and others get it all.  Isn't it absurd, a hollow mockery, and a serious fault?..

Even if a man has a hundred sons and as many daughters and lives to be very old, but leaves so little money at his death that his children can't give him a decent burial - I say that he would be better off born dead. For though his birth would then be futile and end in darkness, without even a NAME... never seeing the sun or even knowing its existence, yet that is better than to be old, an unhappy man.

Though a man lives a thousand years twice over, but doesn't find contentment - well, what's the use? No matter how long or materially prosperous a person's life may be in this world, it all amounts to nothing without true contentment. Without true peace, the person's entire existence is considered less valuable than that of a still born baby.

Why is human existence so miserable and the prospects for the future so somber...?

(Excerpts from a letter written to one of my most beloved friend - January 2001. Inspired by the scriptures from the Holy Book of Ecclesiates)

sincerely,
gasper crasto

 email: gaspercrasto@hotmail.com
 web: http://gaspersworld.tripod.com