I rediscovered the Kung Fu series only recently and completed the whole DVD set of season one a few days ago. I used the famous Grasshopper quote in my first post to this blog. In honour of Carradine, here are 2 more
Near the end of the first season, Caine is asked if he has all the answers. He says: I seek not to know the answers, but to understand the questions.
In many ways, this is my goal with this blog. I don’t think I have all the “right” answers. I may not have any right answers at all. Many times, I’m not sure there is a single “right”answer.
More importantly, we as a society often seem to find the “right” answer to the wrong question. This feels suspiciously like a solution running around in search of a problem, something I was taught in undergraduate school to be wary and distrustful of. So I think we have to get the right question first.
My personal life journey includes trying to come to terms with having lost 2 of my grandparents to genocide. Some have worried that I spent too much time dwelling in the past. Myself included, some days. I used to take solace from the quote “He who ignores the past is doomed to repeat it“. But I recently watched the episode where this sequence occurs
Caine: Is it good to seek the past, Master Po? Does it not rob the present?
Master Po: If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past.
So a balance is needed. Don’t dwell in the past, but don’t ignore it either. Easy to say. Not so easy to find the balance in practice.
So long, Grasshopper!