There’s that saying, “curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” I find the first part rings particularly true as we navigate adulthood. The unsettling part is often knowing how things really work, stripping away the wonder. The magic behind the trick is no longer a delightful mystery because it’s been explained, or worse, instantly looked up.
Now, when I walk past a restaurant with a “soft opening” sign, my mind immediately conjures up statistics about the notoriously high failure rates of eateries in their first year, the already razor-thin profit margins. Then I start thinking about the family behind it – what their lives must be like. Was this their lifelong dream, poured into brick and mortar? Were they perhaps backed into this? Is this their one shot at happiness? Are they even truly happy, or is the reality a heavier burden than they ever anticipated? Will they even survive the year? As a child, my thoughts would have been a simple, enthusiastic, “Wow, it’s so cool they get to cook food! They achieved their dream of being a chef.” Oh, little Janvi, just wait until you get a taste of career viability in this economy.
That innate human drive to question is always there. But it makes me wonder, when we’re in the middle of a spirited game of Bananagrams and someone hesitates over whether “crocs” legitimately counts as a word, why don’t we just take a group vote and leave the definitive answer un-Googled? Let’s decide amongst ourselves, embrace the debate, and leave the search engine out of it for once. The answers to so many open-ended discussions are just a few taps away, but where’s the genuine fun in that instant resolution?
During a trip to Vietnam in January, a friend and I took a charming biking tour in Hoi An, a city in the north known for its beautiful lanterns. Our guide introduced us to the unsung heroes of the local economy: a woman who woke up at 2am to meticulously craft the noodles used by countless restaurants, a couple who diligently harvested the fresh sprouts, another individual who prepared the local desserts. These were manual labor tasks, resulting in tangible goods that sustained the community, typically involving grueling hours and early mornings, day after day. We learned from one of the grandparents that their children had no desire to continue the family business; they yearned to travel and see the world, fueled by the curated glimpses they saw on social media.
The potential loss of these deeply rooted, family-passed traditions genuinely saddens me. I understand the inevitability of modernization and how technology enables speed and consistency. Yet, nothing quite compares to the appreciation of knowing something was made by hand (ideally with a touch of love <3), witnessing it in action with its accompanying story and context.
Are they truly happy in their work? Do they even yearn for the kind of travel and global experiences that seem so ubiquitous on social media? Or is it possible that those who work with their hands, creating tangible things, find a deeper satisfaction than I do staring at endless excel sheets, supposedly “creating value” that often feels abstract and unseen? Sometimes, I find myself overwhelmed. Do they experience that same kind of overwhelm? We likely cry about different things, shaped by vastly different life experiences. Their lifetime in Vietnam versus my experiences are worlds apart.
Yet, corny as it might sound, some fundamental human experiences likely remain universal – the bonds of family and friendship, the joy of love found and the ache of love lost, navigating tough times and celebrating happy days, the simple感受 of hot and cold, the release of laughter, the rhythm of sun and rain, the freedom of riding a bike, the grounding of walking through grass, the quiet pride of accomplishment, the pure joy of a moment.
Anyway, all of this circles back to a feeling of unease. When I see an elderly Chinese woman painstakingly making 400 dumplings by hand in a day, it tugs at my heart. Though, I must remind myself not to immediately assume the worst. What is the delicate balance between optimism, pessimism, pragmatism, and realism? Are pragmatism and realism even the same thing? In the spirit of my earlier point about resisting instant answers, I’m not going to Google it, so we’ll just pretend they are for now (lol). I’ll choose to believe that everyone is doing their best and hope they have a good day. And I can certainly hope they wish the same for me. That feels like enough.
Now, I’m left questioning why so much of the knowledge I’ve gained seems to cast a negative light on the very situations I ponder. Knowledge often feels like it erodes hope by revealing clarifying, sometimes harsh, realities. Why can’t it more often illuminate the positive? Is it because we are innately drawn to seeing the good in the world and in people, only to be confronted and perhaps jaded by the facts of wars, loss, and hardship? News networks, while often sensationalized, report on real events happening globally and in my own backyard, making them impossible to completely ignore.
As a child, you are often shielded from these harsh realities. You have yet to experience the full spectrum of human emotion, the vastness of what could be. If I could somehow unlearn the knowledge of pain and suffering, would that be a better state? “Ignorance is bliss,” they say… but as Buddha so wisely realized, if you don’t understand the depths of the worst, how can you truly appreciate the heights of the best? I remember in my Intro to Visual Arts class, a draft of my final project on dandelions was overwhelmingly gray because I was hesitant to use true black and white. My professor’s feedback was insightful: without utilizing the full spectrum of values, how could I ever achieve the full potential of my vision? To truly show light, you must have shadow. To make the highlights pop with white, you need the grounding of black for contrast. The principle of yin and yang.
All of this to say, as I continue to learn and grow as an adult, I want to cultivate a mindful approach, striving to remain hopeful within reason. I don’t need to succumb to a wave of melancholy every time I pass a quiet, empty restaurant. There’s a balance to be struck between knowing and hoping.