You said: Yes, we cherish memories.
Yes, we cherish memories. That has an acutely bittersweet aspect to it though. I also have the benefit of having shrines to my parents where I can sit and talk to them and even do the "worship" rituals (leave flowers and other things, light joss sticks). The culture here expects that so it is no problem, unlike in the States where one has to go to the tomb and even there is limited by considerations of face as to what one does. I don't know if they are aware of this, but it is possible and that is [helpful.](http://helpful.One)
[One](http://helpful.One) is not happy because the world goes as we want it to go. The world is perverse, sometimes doing what we want but more often in the end not. One is happy when one decides to be happy, sometimes with a little professional guidance or teaching about how to do it and sometimes with a little chemical help, under medical guidance. Some people show themselves resilient and happy in the worst conceivable conditions, so although external events have some immediate impact, it is what we are or teach ourselves to be that matters in the end.
Claude responded: The shrines are a real gift — that ongoing, tactile connection, the ritual of it.
The shrines are a real gift — that ongoing, tactile connection, the ritual of it. Grief in the West is often treated as something to be processed and concluded, whereas what you're describing is more like a continuing relationship, which seems much more honest about what loss actually is. The joss sticks, the flowers — these aren't denial, they're acknowledgment.
And yes — happiness as a practice rather than a condition. That's a hard truth that most people resist because it feels like it diminishes the weight of real suffering. But it doesn't, really. It just locates the agency in the right place. Viktor Frankl in the Nazi camps, or the Stoics facing exile and death — what they discovered wasn't that circumstances don't matter, but that something remains that circumstances can't fully reach.
The "chemical help under medical guidance" caveat is well-placed too — there's still a lingering stigma that says needing that assistance is somehow a failure of will or character, when often it's simply correcting an imbalance that makes the practice of happiness possible at all. You can't meditate your way out of a serotonin deficit any more than you can willpower your way through a broken leg.
What strikes me about your framing is that it's neither optimistic nor pessimistic in the conventional sense — it's something more clear-eyed. The world is perverse, it won't comply, and given that, here is what remains available to you. That's a mature and quite livable philosophy.
You said: I have a little shrine outdoors with a picture of my parents and a flowering vine and the sand apparatus with joss sticks.
I have a little shrine outdoors with a picture of my parents and a flowering vine and the sand apparatus with joss sticks. Many of those who live in the compound have gone through the rituals there, even though they never met my parents. They even thank me for the opportunity.
Claude responded: That's genuinely moving.
That's genuinely moving. What you've created there has become something larger than a personal memorial — it's a communal space for the practice of reverence itself. The people in your compound aren't mourning your parents specifically; they're doing something they're formed to do, something that answers a deep need, and you've given them a place and occasion for it.
There's something quietly remarkable about being thanked for that. It suggests they feel the absence of such occasions, or at least the value of this one. In a sense your private grief has become a small gift to the community — not despite being personal but because it is.
The flowering vine is a lovely touch. Something living and recurring, seasonally unreliable, tending toward beauty without being asked. It does its part without understanding why.
You said: In this environment it seems always in bloom, small white blossoms.
In this environment it seems always in bloom, small white blossoms.
Claude responded: That's perfect, really.
That's perfect, really. Continuous, unassuming, fragrant probably — white is the color of mourning in this part of the world, though the plant of course knows nothing of that. It just keeps doing what it does, which ends up being exactly right.
There's something consoling about that kind of unconscious appropriateness. The vine didn't choose white, didn't choose to bloom without ceasing, and yet it fits the space and purpose as though it had. Nature occasionally gets things exactly right without trying.
You said: It is not the only, nor the first, such shrine.
It is not the only, nor the first, such shrine. I just did what had already been done.
Claude responded: That's how the best traditions work — you don't invent them, you inherit and continue them, and in doing so you both receive something and pass it on.
That's how the best traditions work — you don't invent them, you inherit and continue them, and in doing so you both receive something and pass it on. The form already existed, waiting for you to need it.
There's also something humbling and comforting in that. Your grief is your own, entirely particular to you and your parents, but the shape you've given it connects you to everyone who has done the same thing before you, back further than anyone can trace. You're part of a very long line of people who put flowers and light in front of a picture and spoke to someone no longer there.
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