Touching dirt carries many meanings. In the eyes of parents, it appears to be touching something dirty; dirt touched by a farmer's hands is being diagnosed and assessed; dirt touched by a potter's hands is being reborn as art. Though it is the same dirt, depending on whose hands are touching it, the dirt may be transformed into something resplendent, or it may suffer the fate of being shaken off and brushed away amid accusations of filth. Dirt cannot change its own form, but when it receives tremendous pressure deep below in searing heat, it may transform into a different shape. Some dirt becomes granite, some becomes diamond, some becomes basalt, and some becomes sandstone. It may become a jewel, or it may become a stone. And after being buried within other dirt for a very long time, once the dirt is discovered by someone's hands and refined, only then can it travel across the world. It may become a ring slipped onto someone's finger, an earthenware dish holding someone's meal, or a teacup holding warm tea. Filth or beauty? Lowliness or nobility? That is not for the dirt to decide. It is merely a meaning assigned by humans.
What about humans? If a person who shines brilliantly were sent to a particular point in the past, would he still shine then? If Michael Jordan, who could be called the greatest light of modern basketball, were sent some 200 years into the past and raised without even being properly fed, he might find himself in a situation where he had to live as a slave in a cotton field and end his short life there. If Einstein, the genius of the century, had been born in South Korea after liberation, could he have discovered the theory of relativity? Any greatness requires an era in which it can shine, requires an ideology, and requires someone to make use of it. Someone had to place the ball in Michael Jordan's hands, and someone had to grant Einstein paper and pen. Humans think they can change much of their own destiny, but that is not so. A truly large part of a human being is governed by all the circumstances and environment surrounding them. To lay the blame for all of this on the individual is painful. To turn the blame for all this failure onto the individual is painful.
But I intend to turn it onto myself. I must hurt. I must feel pain. Without pain, people do not move much. Only when one hurts enough does one head to the hospital. If I do not hurt from failure, would I struggle desperately toward success? If I do not stay up through the night with tears and anguish, what transformation could I achieve? Of course, no matter what I do, I may fail. Like the life of Van Gogh, my entire life may be stained with failure, and I may never once see the brilliant light of success until the moment I die. But even so, that does not change the deeds of a human who defied destiny. Dirt cannot move anywhere by its own will, and dirt cannot decide its own form by its own will, but a human—I—possess the power to choose and a slight power to influence the world. To cry out toward the world with this minute power, and to struggle desperately to defy destiny, is in itself greatness. It is not great achievements that make one great. The greatness a human possesses is also found in the act of drawing water and quenching a child's thirst, even when one must walk three hours every day across parched land to find water for the child to drink. No one will remember his name. One day he may perhaps depart from life amid poverty, hunger, and thirst, yet his greatness can never disappear.
People measure greatness by achievement. And they are cursed by it. A life of comparing achievements like measuring heights. It is utterly useless. How valid are their achievements? How trivial is the greatness humans speak of. How many are there who, even amid the storms facing death, can challenge destiny and raise their middle finger toward the world to pour out their fury? That is what boldness is. It is making the greatest choice within one's weaknesses and the deficiencies of one's life. How great a thing it is for a patient with full-body paralysis to write using only barely-moving eyelids. How great a thing it is for a firefighter to leap into the flames of death even though a beloved family waits at home. How great is the sight of someone going to save a life at the risk of their own, though not a single drop of blood is shared between them. Why must a police officer take the blade of a violent criminal in my place? Are they doing that work merely to earn money? If there are those who say so, I would be truly saddened.
To live a life is not for the sake of measuring heights. It is not for living while comparing who earned how much, who is better than me, and who is worse. Even if that may be the purpose and the signpost of life for them, I firmly refuse that path. No—I want to spit on the path they walk. I can declare with certainty that such a life is a shameful life. If there is a god who gifted them with great blessings, that god would surely regret it. No—they have proven themselves. They have proven, through their words and actions and every choice across their lives, their own baseness: that they are human beings who can never become great no matter how many blessings they receive.
Thus, what they will receive after death has been determined. Would this calculation be unjust? Or would it be more righteous than anything else?