We All Know

Text and images by Chen Chi-Hsiang

We all know that you cannot fry an egg with boiling water, yet we stubbornly insist on frying it. (Inspired by Charles de Gaulle’s quote: “You cannot fry an egg with boiling water.”) We all know that politicians are lying, and they know they are lying, yet we foolishly believe them. (Inspired by Soviet writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know that we know they are lying, and we know that they know that we know they are lying, but they continue to lie anyway.”) We all know that lies repeated again and again eventually become truth, yet we shape lies into truth. (Inspired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech to Harvard graduates: “Never turn a lie into truth, or slander the truth as a lie.”) We all know that in this era of information explosion, what we lack most is knowledge. We all know the importance of global resources, yet we produce massively and consume (deplete) massively. We all know that smoking is harmful to health, yet we inhale and exhale smoke like immortals, seeking inspiration or passing time. We all know that the “Id” resides within our bodies, yet we are confused by the external material world and forget who we are. We all know the convenience of smartphones, yet we indulge in small screens, unable to extricate ourselves like drug addicts. We all clearly know that life inevitably involves both birth and death, yet we cling to life and fear death, ultimately failing to achieve immortality.