"Night Flight to the West" Reading Notes

Title: "Night Flight West"
Author: Bertrand Markham, translated by Tao Lixia
Recommendation: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If contempt for death can be understood as bravery, then Albert, this dying friend, is a fearless man.
Filth seems to have no excuse for existence, but sometimes, like now, it is difficult to find a reason for cleanliness. "Poverty," as the saying goes, "is dirty, not shameful." Here, poverty is the lack of a woman's help, the lack of hope, and even the lack of vitality. As far as I know, there may be a lot of gold buried in the hut. Even so, it is the most barren consolation.
A person suffering from malaria may experience years of torment before dying, enduring cold, high fever, and nightmares. However, if one day he finds that his urine has turned black, he knows that it is no longer possible for him to leave that place, no matter where he is or where he wants to go. He knows what kind of days are waiting for him ahead, long, boring, endless, with only the alternation of day and night, without color, without sound, and without meaning. He will lie on the sickbed, feeling every second passing like a ribbon woven from endless pain, passing through his body, because at that time, time itself has become agony. Light and darkness also become agony, and all his consciousness exists only to feel this agony, allowing it to invade his consciousness again and again without interruption. The fact is simple and clear: he is going to die.
If your intuition leads to a good end, then you have been enlightened; if it does not, then you should feel ashamed of blindly following reckless impulses.
I don't know why I have to run, or what purpose there is, but whenever I have no specific direction, I will run as fast as I can, hoping to find a destination in this way - and I always do.
Human thought seems to hate the suppression of natural instincts, but it uses human standards to limit the more true animal instincts, which sometimes seems unreasonable and quite strange.
I have learned that if you have to leave a place, a place where you have lived, loved, and buried all your past, no matter how you leave, don't leave slowly, leave decisively, never look back, and never believe that the past was better, because it has already disappeared. The past years seem safe and harmless, easily crossed, while the future is hidden in the mist, appearing daunting from a distance. But when you step into it, the clouds will disperse. I have learned this, but like everyone else, I learned it too late.
What does a rain mean to a person's life? If it doesn't rain for a month, the sky is clear like a child's song, the sun shines, people walk in the sunshine, and the world becomes golden, what does it matter? If it doesn't rain for a week, what does it matter? Who would be so gloomy as to look forward to a storm?
In the early morning, the plateau is higher than the sun.
"The world is so big," he said, "I have been to Vazhin Kis, even to a place further south than Bikericho, and I have walked in the Kenyan mountains. But no matter where people go, there are always more places to go, so continuing to move forward is meaningless. I have hunted buffalo and lions, sold sheep in a place called Soiam, and been to other places with others. A person who has experienced these things can go home, but he has not become wiser."
It seems to be out early and return late, and it is always exceptionally generous to those who do not care about it.
I have always believed that important and exciting changes in a person's life only occur at some crossroads in the world, where people meet, build tall buildings, trade with their labor, laugh happily, and work hard, like beads on a monk's robe, firmly grasping the rapidly rotating civilization.
In Africa, people have learned to take care of each other. Their lives rely on a "credit balance": today you help others, and someday, as a return, you may need others to help you. In this sparsely populated country, "neighborly harmony" is not so much a sermon as a way of survival. If you encounter someone in trouble, you stop and help, and next time, he may stop for you.
A person's greatness is not manifested in fleeting moments of glory, but in his daily work records.
The two people who hit it were as cold-blooded as ordinary people, perhaps even less humane. They shot, but did not kill it, instead they aimed the heartless camera at its painful struggle. This is insignificant, foolish, but also a cold-blooded crime.
No matter how death comes to any creature, it deserves respect.
He said, "If we have to fly, M'Essaheb, let's fly. What time do we start in the morning?"
Life takes on different shapes, it grows new branches, and some old branches die. It follows the timeless pattern of all life: out with the old, in with the new. Old things pass away, and new things come.
You cannot stop believing in facts just because legends are born from them.
When you sit and talk with others, you are alone - so are others. Wherever you are, as soon as night falls, the flames burn freely with the wind, and you are alone. Who is listening to what you say besides yourself? What meaning does your thoughts have for others?
On the plateau, where Greeks should have met Greeks, they did not see any Greeks coming.
If a song can soothe a warlike heart, then any ribbon worn on any chest can satisfy a general, and the definition of victory is nothing more than victory itself.
Only "control" can bring dignity to human labor.
It is possible that after you have lived your whole life, you will find that you understand others better than you understand yourself. You learn to observe others, but never observe yourself, because you are struggling with loneliness.
This experience is as surprising as discovering a stranger walking beside you at night. You are that stranger.
The storm is fierce, but comforting.
Success breeds confidence. But besides God, who has the power of confidence?
It is possible that after you have lived your whole life, you will find that you understand others better than you understand yourself.
In summary, life is just about meeting the right people and the wrong people.

Translator's Note:

Bertrand Markham answers with this sentence in "Night Flight West": "I have spent too much time alone, and silence has become a habit.
As Bertrand Markham said, "The soul of Africa, her integrity, her slow and tenacious lifeblood, her unique rhythm, cannot be understood by intruders unless you have been immersed in her endless gentle rhythm since childhood. Otherwise, you are like an onlooker, watching the Masai's battle dance, but knowing nothing about the meaning of its music and dance steps."
In this age of reading for leisure, this book may only be a temporary escape, taking you to a non-existent Africa. When you close the book, nothing has changed. But you know that there was such a life, such a world, such beliefs, and such people.
We only live once, so this story only needs to be told once. Tao Lixia