Life Sucks!

I am full of life. Miserable, miserable life. It's growing inside of me, oozing out of my mouth and nose, and it's not my life, and it's making me sick. I don't know exactly what sort of life it is, but I don't want it in me any more. I've been sick to varying degrees for three weeks now. The fluctuations have been such that most of the days that I've felt really bad have been on weekends. On one hand this has been bad because it kills my weekends, but on the other hand it's good because for most of the time I've felt really bad I didn't have to deal with classrooms full of screaming Korean teenagers.

Back when I was at Golgul Temple, eating vegetarian food in typical Buddhist fashion with a bunch of other foreigners on the tour, I nailed a huge mosquito as it was buzzing around our food. I felt pretty good about my reflexes, and ridding the world of one more pest until I realized that Buddhists are against killing anything, as far as my limited knowledge on Buddhism is concerned, and that had any of the monks noticed my lethal instinct-driven reflexes, they probably wouldn't be that impressed. Well, whatever. What about right now, when there are foreign life forms in my body, causing me to cough and sneeze and have headaches and stuffy noses and fevers? Germs are a form of life, and they simply pursue the perpetuation of their own species. This is the common goal of everything living, and as far as I'm concerned, the only inarguable definition of "the meaning of life". Whatever germs are inside of me right now, while pursing their own self-preservation and reproduction, are making me feel like shit, and it is my bodies involuntary response to attempt to create a holocaust of these germs.

Our bodies have evolved to kill, or attempt to kill, any form of life that gets inside of us and gives us trouble. That's how nature works. I wonder what a Buddhist monk would say about that. I wonder what anyone who is against the destruction of life would say about that. They would probably say you should avoid killing things if possible, but unfortunately "should" and "if possible" invite inevitable differences in opinion any time they are used. I looked up "do Buddhists kill?" on Google, and one of the first hits is quite appropriate to what initially got me thinking about the subject, "Buddhists, do you kill mosquitoes?" The "best answer" listed underneath the question isn't what I found most interesting here. It's the next answer, by the lunatic who claims that mosquitoes won't bite Buddhists because real Buddhists control their smell and heat so that mosquitoes won't be attracted to them. If the internet is good for nothing else, it at least reassures you that you are smarter than someone out there.



I think it's because I am a foreigner and Koreans think I am utterly inept that my co-workers and friends take such care to make sure I am getting better. Really, this probably translates to the obvious fact that I unable to speak Korean to get help myself. When I was first feeling bad when I went into school a couple weeks ago, the nurse gave me some medicine and stayed late to personally bring me to a clinic and pharmacy after work. The next day she bought me a scarf and gave me a massive jar of citron tea (both pictured above, along with a banner that will need updating come next spring). My co-teachers keep asking me if my house is warm enough, or if my clothes are warm enough, and if the Korean weather is too cold for me. My climbing friend Ilhan brought me some homemade fungi tea, apparently rich in antioxidants and vitamins, made from fungi raised by his father, and made into a tea by his wife, and just this evening, two weeks later, he swung by my apartment to give me some warm liquid in a packet that tasted like spicy dirt, and supposedly helps to keep my temperature up, aiding my bodies natural tendency to burn germs out, otherwise known as running a fever. I know it wasn't anything too bad though, because he has a cold too, one I probably gave to him at some point, and he drank one of the packets down with me.

I hope these germs die for good soon. Recovering from a sickness, minor or not, makes me appreciate how good it is to feel healthy. I was supposed to go to a darts tournament this weekend but I was sick. I was supposed to climb in a bouldering competition, but I was sick. It's nice to feel good enough to do those things without having to think about whether you feel good enough or not. Life, in general, is a good thing, but when some strange species of life gets inside of the body that houses my own life, that strange species of life really sucks and needs to die and get the fuck out.