Every semester John studies this book with his grade 10 English class. I asked him to bring home a copy for me to read and I have been LOVING it so far. It's not too long, beautifully written, thought provoking and I feel kinda smart when I turn it's pages.
Last night after the kids went to bed, I snuggled up on our new couch (actually, it's not new ...in fact it's old, but new to me), and began to delve into the life of this Shepherd boy, Santiago. John interrupted me for a moment to share a particular phrase that is included in the beginning pages of the book. It's an old Japanese proverb and it reads:
The secret to life is to fall down 7 times but get up 8
What does that mean? How can you get up 8 times if you've fallen down only 7? It doesn't make sense. I laughed at this at first, and I have to admit, I figured it was perhaps a typo. (so much for being smart eh) Yet....I 'm beginning to think that maybe it wasn't a typo. Maybe I'm just missing something.
...something important.
....something BIG
....something that only smart people figure out.
It would be an understatement to say I haven't been thinking of this phrase all day. I think I've come up with some ideas of what exactly it means, yet nothing I could adequately convey. I'll have to finish the book first. Maybe it gives the answers at the end:)
What do you think it means?
5 comments:
Ah yes, the good old and ever popular
nana korobi ya oki.
Tanis, I totally get where you're coming from and in the self contained context of falling seven times then getting up seven times you would end up standing in the end and ready to take on that cruel world yet again.
I'm sure the proverb author thought seriously about going with 7down 7Up™ version but in the end knew that some smarty pants sitting in the front row of a classroom somewhere would then point out that we don't actually begin life standing up so don't we have to get up once before we can fall? Taking this into consideration requires adding one more get up in the end to ensure that no matter where we start counting from, if we get up one more time than we've fallen we are sure to be standing in the end.
I really enjoyed this book. Good luck figuring out the proverb. I usually skip over the parts that don't make sense.
I agree with Lorin. That's how I interpreted it...
I really enjoyed this book and read it at least once a year. Enjoy it...
What a good explanation from Lorin...I wish I was that smart! Let me know if there's anything more to that quote!
Thanks Shauna and Brett for agreeing with my explanation. It's just one possibility of course. The more I think about it the more I feel that it may in fact just be a blatant yet nearly always overlooked miscalculation on the author's part. Maybe the really smart ones are those who wonder why the need for getting up the 8th time.
As far as there being anything more to the quote Brett, there is actually less to it than appears in this book. It doesn't actually include a claim of being the secret to life. nana korobi ya oki literally means, seven falls eight get ups. Translated into the English way of saying it leads to the "fall down 7 times but get up 8" version. I suppose that its being a proverb automatically includes the implication that it is one of the secrets of life.
Now if I could just find someone to tell me what to do now that I've fallen way more than eight times.
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