on birds and crabs

From Chuang-Tzu to now

In a game of everyday life, it is simply not enough to be. It is simply not enough to embrace the results of the game, to be reactive amidst a mindset that demands hunger and motion.

At least, that’s how Katsushika Hokusai felt – at 73 years old, nonetheless. Having spent his life as the prolific artist behind one of the world’s most famous paintings, it was only at this age that he began to blossom. “To fathom the growth of plants and trees, and the structure of birds, animals, insects and fish” was his achievement in his 70s, only just starting to see the way a fish bends through water, the way a bird lifts its body into the sky not with ease but with effort.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

There is something further, stronger, lying beneath our feet unseen but shaking as if to push us forward. It is the latest prospect showing up to the gym despite his trainer cancelling. It is Calvino’s reader, who, in the face of the love of his life, still can’t draw his mind away from the pages he’s yet to finish. It is Hokusai, painting, searching for the beauty of a moment he hadn’t witnessed, mad with the ache of almost.

Let us never forget the story of Chuang-Tzu. An expert craftsman during the Warring States period, the king asked him to draw a crab, to which he responded the task necessitated “five years, a country house, and twelve servants.” After those five were completed, he said, another five were needed. And thus, after ten years of waiting, the king demanded his crab, for which Chuang-Tzu picked up his brush and “with a single stroke, he drew a crab, the most perfect crab ever seen.”

We may be waiting for our crab, but there is no doubt it will be perfect. For the cities are stars and the people are the moon, so what better way to admire them.