What Is Value
马靖瑜
The old man longs for a challenge, for an evenly matched fight. He considers the fish to be his friend, but he has to kill it because only he can and only he is worthy of killing it.
From a worldly point of view, the old man cannot be seen as a successful, happy man; he has no wealth, no warm and beautiful family, no privileged social status. But if we look at it from the most primitive and original point of view, how many people can be in the same state of life as the old man, full of nobility and strength?
There is a hierarchical order of animals in nature, and what determines the order are differences of strength and dignity. The lion is the king of all animals, the lone hero, whose kingly stance depends entirely on his unrestricted state of life, confidently exploring the world, outwardly manifesting and expanding his own strength and beauty. The reason why the old man dreamed of the lion on his fishing trip and then at home after losing the marlin is not, I think, out of regret or nostalgia, because the fact that the old man did not dream of the fond memories of his youth shows that he has no regrets about ending up empty-handed. The lion is a spiritual kinsman of the old man, and the fact that the old man dreams of a lion playing on the beach indicates that he knows he has not failed his life principles and that he is as confident, pure and sublime as the lion.
The noble richness of an old man's life cannot be measured by material gain or loss. Even when faced with one overwhelming and desperate challenge after another, they still fight against fate with the vigour of a lion, rather than retreating like a rabbit to a place of safety, humbly and cowardly, gradually compressing their space to move.
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