~ The Usefulness of A Cup Is In Its Emptiness ~

Imagine if this world is perfect as perfect as you can imagine...No poverty, no hunger, no disease, no war, no conflict, no problems, or simply said, no negative things or anything associated with that in this world for everybody. Would you want it? Do you really want it? Think again...If i were to be asked such question, my answer is an absolute NO!
Why? What would happen to all of us such scenario comes? Think of it...what would happen to scientists and geniouses...they'd be left with no case to solve, doctors with nobody to heal, philosophers with no paradox to think, businessmen with nothing to produce it to, and so on the list goes....
But look now to the world we live in right now, does not it has its own beauty? Everyone have problems to work on, other people to be helped and improved its life. Is it not such a great joy and happiness the last time we did a very big help/deed for another person unconditionally? Besides of its side effect of increasing self-worth and self-patting, we have to admit that one of individual's basic psychological need is to feel useful and have meaningful life.

Just like as we have developing countries and developed countries...People of developed countries can choose to be the ones with giving hands, able to benefit from being happy and useful through their positive contributions, while people of the developing countries are the happy receiving hands, being happy for to be blessed and improved its life.


The same it goes with richer individuals vs poor individuals, educated vs uneducated, stronger vs weaker people. That is the beauty that this world has many receiving hands, hands to be helped and lives to be improved, for eventually through wisdom in living this life, we will eventually understand is that the joy of life is in giving... The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness. Imagine if that cup that is our world is fully filled. How hell it would be, wouldn't it?



Nobody can pour anything more into the cup...there would be no more outlet for individuals' creativity and each one's special capabilities. Nobody would be able to use what they are good in as there is nothing to be grind. Nobody needs to be helped and people can live in their own cells without needing to interact with others. Eventually, everyone would come to feel useless and 'meaningful life' would just be historical concept. Therefore, do not curse the darkness, but bless it as each darkness is opportunity for us to become light unto it...

But now understanding all this, do you come to worry that we might one day reach that point of 'full-perfection' that nothing can be poured in anymore into the cup, therefore it might be wise thing to slow down world progress and development so that there would be longer time to play? One does not have to worry that way, for life is essentially a cycle itself of two opposite aspects. Taoism philosophy through its Yin-Yang symbolism, portrays that the highest peak/maximum of an aspect is the beginning of the opposite aspect, just like the metaphor of "The darkest hour is right before the dawn".


Everything have its cycle, take US economy for example, in the many past decades its economy has reached its maximum peak and now/in the not so far future, it's overall economy is starting to slope down the hill, where in the very very faraway future again it would peak to reach its maximum height again. The same goes with civilizations, history has recorded the rise and fall of civilizations just as the above principle, let it be the Mayans, Atlantis, or any other big civilizations. And in the faraway future (God knows when exactly) the civilizations would reach its peak again. The time span might be too long to be observed or thought about.

If we want to be simple, we can look at Chinese civilization, overall we can say that it reached its peak in centuries before BC, where it stood in supremacy over any other civilizations, where in China many amazing inventions were being made, the Europeans were still living in rather primitive technologies. After its golden era spanning over many centuries, the Chinese civilization goes sloping down, with European civilization starting to catch up that it eventually surpassed the Chinese, and minimum slope of the Chinese civilization was marked by the opening of gates to the European in the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty, and we see now in this new millenium, the Chinese have been climbing up the slope to its peak where it will eventually surpass America that has been sloping down the hill on the other hand.


There may be disagreements between individual historical regarding 'correct' Golden Age of a civilization, and such is perfectly understandable, just like year-month-day-hour-minutes-s econds concept, within one big cycle, there is many smaller cycles, so it depends exactly on which cycle they are referring to their golden age. Understanding all this, you should therefore not anymore worry and hesitate to give out your best to the world, thanks to the cycle system embedded in life, it is unlikely that this game of life would ever be over. There would always be things and problems to be worked on with dynamically changing and flowing situations of the world, meaning there would always be plenty of opportunities for everybody to shine.