Christy Kim
Age 9,
Seoul, South Korea
International Winner
What is the Meaning of Life?
What is the meaning of life, you say.
To make it simpler, what is life? In my opinion, life is like
a ride on a plane. At first, you are fed, and kept healthy. You
are revving up the engine of the plane, ready for taxiing. And
then, you start learning some words. That is when the plane starts
taxiing. Then, take-off! Off into the air you go, learning, making
mistakes and learning more, and so on…
As you spend more time, as you grow up, the plane ride goes faster,
just like when time goes fast when you grow up. Then, the schooling.
The goal is to keep level in the air, NOT to find your nose of
the airplane heading for the ocean of failure, loss, sickness
and despair. Sometimes if you listen to your mother and teachers
advice, you can swoop out of a nose-dive. Or, even go up a little,
work hard more, to reduce the possibilities of dying of sickness,
or of despair to a tiny sliver. Bad habits may lead to more speed,
and you don’t want that in case you are heading toward the
ground in the airplane!!! Then another airplane swooshes by, much
better than you. Your working rival! AAARRRGGGHH, you yell as
you make a mistake in a math test and end up with your rival airplane
releasing hoots of gas; of laughter and dropping, no longer heading
towards the sky. Yeah, you think as you swoop up as your rival
drops down.
Some planes, some friends of yours come along. Old ones go, new
ones come. Then, time goes faster. So much stress… Now college,
master is in the way. You drive past the obstacles, not so easily.
The rest of the 75 years (in average) you spend, trying to weave
a path through the clouds. Avoiding obstacles of all kinds. Then,
as you become old and stricken of age, trying to survive, the
fuel runs out of your airplane, and you begin to fall into darkness,
gone… gone… gone… gone…
The whole point is: what is life? It is like an airplane ride.
What emotion is life? Depends on how you use it. Is life useful?
Yes, IF you find some new discoveries that might be helpful to
others. What do you need to survive? Courage, wisdom. And a cheerful
mind. Do you like it? Depends on the person. Oh, me? Well it depends
if there is some ice cream in the fridge… (Oh, I wish you
hadn't said that…)
