Who Has Seen the Wind? > IDEAS & IDEALS

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 Who has seen the wind ?
                     Neither I nor you ;
                     But when the leaves hang trembling,
                     The wind is passing through.

                     Who has seen the wind ?
                     Neither you nor I ;
                     But when the trees bow down their heads,
                     The wind is passing by.

                                        - Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

      It all starts with the wind; the invisible and irresistible wind, blowing from nowhere, that drives a man against enormous odds to sail across the ocean, to discover a new continent, to explore the South Pole, to stand at the top of Mt. Everest, and to land on the moon. Once you get caught by or exposed to this seemingly weak and negligible power, you can not shake it off, nor can you run away from it. In fact, your entire life becomes a struggle with it, against it, and for it. It becomes your fate the moment you breathe it into your lungs.

     The wind that has driven me until now is English. From the time I got acquainted with the English alphabet, English has always been with me - alluring, annoying, and challenging me. From that time on my life has become, consciously and unconsciously, a struggle with it - arduous, of course, but infinitely satisfying and rewarding as well. Not only do I earn my bread by teaching it now, but also through it I have made eternal friendship with the greatest minds that mankind has ever produced.

     I can not help looking back with a fresh and vivid memory to the time when I was introduced to the thrill and pleasure of English language for the first time in my life. It all started with Christina Rossetti's small poem, "Who Has Seen The Wind?" that I came across in a Middle School English textbook. I read this poem over and over again until I could learn it by heart. Later I found myself reciting it in the classroom in front of my classmates. For reasons unknown I became a prisoner of English at that moment, and still I remain so.

     I do not understand what it was in the poem that made me so engrossed and enthralled at that time. It was exactly like the wind described in the poem. I could not see, but I knew it was there - the beauty, the truth, and even the power in it. Since then I have made my long journey through the lofty and mighty halls of fame in English poetry, pushed and carried, and sometimes borne up by the wind that came to me when I was a boy.

     I know I have to be grateful to the wind that came to me early and that has sustained me thereafter, because I know it comes and goes like the dreams we dream when we are young. For many it will not stay long and faithfully. Many lose track of it soon, while some are blown away by it and land on a place where they do not belong. Only those few who are blessed can keep and nurse it, control and tame it, from their boyhood through their youth to the end of their life.

     One day in a man's life a whiff of wind comes from nowhere and whispers something into his ear. Suddenly, he is not what he used to be. His life becomes more work than play. He writes down something in his diary and keeps it locked in one of the drawers of his desk. He writes down new resolutions on the paper and put it on the wall in front of his desk. He makes a tight time schedule for his everyday life which is impossible to follow. He does not laugh much as he used to do. Instead, he grumbles much and makes a serious face all the time. He does not let his fingers go loose. He likes to make a tight fist out of them and pounds his forehead, or chest, or his desk for no obvious reason. He does not go to bed early as usual. He sits up till late at night burning the midnight oil.

     The wind makes a boy ambitious. It tells him to distinguish himself and excel others, and get his name and face known to the world. It tells him to stand higher than others. It tells him to be faster, wiser, cleverer than others. It tells him to be more righteous, adventurous, and courageous than others. The boy cannot but listen to the wind and obeys its commands. He begins to scorn delights and live a laborious life.

     What the wind brings as a reward to those who live up most faithfully to its orders is fame - the strong liquor that intoxicates man's ego, the thirst of youth, the shortest passage to riches and glory, the highest form of vanity, the last infirmity of noble mind. Even the saints and martyrs can not afford to deny it. As the wind blows to everyone, the desire of fame attends both the great and the small. It is a thing that man craves even after death.

     Many moralists in the past and the present teach us to be wary of, or indifferent to, or even neglectful of the fame in the world. But they are either wrong or ignorant. Desire of fame, despite all the adverse warnings of those good and wise men, is all that makes a man. What must not be forgotten, however, is that it starts with the wind, and is itself the wind. It comes and goes disregarding your will, and what is certain is it will constantly disturb your peaceful sleep and quiet life with its noise as long as it blows.
                                                                                                      (April 23, 1987)