Just Like That: Restoring sanity, wisdom, humour with The Importance of Living

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like Every time I am asked to list my favourite books, Lin Yu Tang’s The Importance of Living is always there. I know many readers may not have read it, or even heard about it. But it was a best-selling classic when published in 1938, reprinted umpteen times, and left an indelible impression on me as a college student when I first read it. It still remains a constant primer that I often dip into whenever I need to restore sanity, wisdom, and humour in my life. Discover how Lin Yu Tang’s The Importance of Living challenges modern obsessions with success, urging a life of simplicity, joy, and mindful balance.Lin Yu Tang was a Chinese writer who settled in America later in life, a man deeply immersed in both the known and obscure texts of his native country’s philosophy and traditional wisdom. From these, he culled out a philosophy of life that was humorously humane and gently wise, with irresistible chapters such as ‘On Being Human’, ‘The Feast of Life’, ‘The Enjoyment of Nature’, ‘The Enjoyment of Culture’, and even a delectable essay on ‘The Importance of Loafing’. Closely observing the ‘busyness’ of American life, and its obsession with wealth, fame, power, success, and perennial youth, Lin Yu Tang came up with a contrarian viewpoint that emphasized that, in this one life that one has, the ability to enjoy it fully—with discrimination, passion, and detachment—is the true goal of both human endeavour and spirituality. The rest is, frankly, foolishness. ‘The Chinese philosopher is one who views life with love and sweet irony, who mixes his cynicism with a kindly tolerance,’ writes Lin. ‘He sees with one eye closed and one eye open the futility of much that goes on around him and of his own endeavours. He is seldom disillusioned because he has no illusions, and seldom disappointed because he never had extravagant hopes. In this way his spirit is emancipated.’ Lin summed up the great Taoist philosophy (founded by Tao in the 4th century CE) in just four lines: There is the wisdom of the foolish, Among the great ‘humbugs’ of life, he says, are a human being’s obsession with fame, wealth, and power. ‘There is a convenient American word which again combines these three humbugs into the One Great Humbug: Success. But many wise men know that the desire for success, fame, and wealth are euphemistic names for the fears of failure, poverty, and obscurity.’ Lin quotes Tao after the great philosopher resigned a coveted government job to return to his native place and contentedly tend to his garden: ‘Ah, homeward bound I go! Enough! How long as yet shall I keep this mortal shape? Why not take life as it comes, and why hustle and bustle like one on an errand bound? Wealth and power are not my ambitions, and unattainable is the abode of the gods!’ Lin argues that the ideal life is one that finds the middle ground between excessive ambition and unacceptable passivity. This is summed up in the ancient Chinese thinker Li Mian’s ‘The Half and Half Song’: To live halfway between the town and land, Be half a scholar, and half a squire, and half In business; half as gentry live, And half related to the common folk; And have a house that’s half genteel, half plain, Half elegantly furnished and half bare; And food half epicure’s, half simple fare— Who tastes life but half is wise and cleverest. One of my great favourites is the ancient Chinese poem Lin Yu Tang rediscovered on the love between husband and wife, and man and woman: Then in my clay, there’s a little of you, And in your clay, there’s a little of me. And nothing ever shall us sever; Lying, we’ll sleep in the same quilt, And dead, we’ll be buried together.’ Lin also has a wonderful chapter on the art of growing old gracefully, and confesses to being quite bemused at the West’s preoccupation with hiding one’s age. For him, age is a benediction. With lyrical simplicity, he writes: ‘No one can really stop growing old; he can only cheat himself by not admitting that he is getting old. And since there is no use fighting against nature, one might just as well grow old gracefully. The symphony of life should end with a grand finale of peace and serenity and spiritual contentment, and not with a crash of a broken drum or cracked cymbals.’ Readers, if you can get hold of a copy of The Importance of Living, grab it. It’s never too late to change your life, so that you can really learn to enjoy—while it lasts—this great gift of the Almighty! (Pavan K Varma is an author, diplomat, and former member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The views expressed are personal)