These days, I’m less and less inclined to go inside tourist attractions. Most of the time, I just take photos from the outside, because the history inside is lifeless, while the people outside and the things happening there are alive—street performers and vendors, for example. Now I would rather sit outside an attraction and chat with people to learn about the lives of the locals.
For example, during my few days in Lisbon, I kept passing a rock-balancing artwork by the sea, created by a Portuguese artist who stacked graffiti-covered stones. On my last day in Lisbon, the tide came in, and I saw many of the stones being swept into the sea. Feeling a little sad, I struck up a conversation with the artist. Since he didn’t speak English, I had to use a translation app on my phone.
He said the artwork was a tribute to women around the world, and that the stones were held upright through balance alone. I asked whether he felt sad that his work had been carried away by the waves. He waved his hand and said no—that was simply how nature worked. Once the tide went out, he would make it again and treat it as exercise.
Later, I thought that perhaps this is what life is like. Although “Heaven and Earth are impartial and treat all things as straw dogs,” we can always find a way forward and allow our abundant vitality to keep unfolding. So when we encounter life’s storms and towering waves, I hope we can all be like this artist: calmly accept them, wait for the storm to pass, and then carry on living our lives well.