Life is like a boat sailing down a river to me — never leaving us alone, never deciding when anyone will get on or off the edge. I think: the boat is not a mattress like a cage that is made just for me; it is a time-sharing seat — sometimes carrying a child’s smile, sometimes an old man’s breath, sometimes a pair of loving hands, sometimes someone’s sad look. Every person who gets on the boat brings a small history, and the boat holds all those histories together — sometimes as a light song, sometimes as a silent memory.
At first, I thought the boat was mine; if I were there, the journey would be smooth. Later, I realized that the boat was as much ‘mine’ to me as it was ‘others’. One person’s happiness meant another’s break. Sometimes unrequited love emerged — a boy talked about his first love, a mother sang two obligatory wishes for her child, some cried, and some remained silent for a while. This is the sweet-bitter combination of life on a boat: being together means not only joy, but also responsibility. Holding someone's trembling hand, being ready to rest your head on someone's cold shoulder — this is the flattering job of a boat.
No one can tell when a storm will break out on the river. It is only when the storm comes that you feel afraid, when you know that the people around you are also afraid. That's when small responsibilities become armed: who is talking secretly under the roof, who is crying but not saying anything — all I have to do is hold on to the boat, not just my own deck — you have to shoulder the risks others take, their pain, the reasons for their laughter. This responsibility is not unnecessary; it is related to love — being able to cry when someone cries, wanting to share happiness when someone is happy is true affection.
Every day, new people come on the boat trip; some get on for one night, some stay with you for life. Listening to their stories, you can understand how many dreams flow, how much light-serious pain, how many illusory desires. Some find hope by putting down the burden behind them, while others become vendors by entangling the past in the boat. It is at such times that you understand that each person leaves a different responsibility to the boat. They are the ones who make the boat human; the boat carries the fibers of the relationship between them. We are all handling that boat together—sometimes rightly, sometimes negligently, but always strictly humanely.
When you reach adulthood, it seems that the wood of the boat has been torn a little, but there are countless memories attached to it—not only mine, but also those with whom the boat crossed. As you get older, a new responsibility comes: the exhaustion of the boat versus opening space for new ones. We begin to understand that the boat does not only carry; in this boat, you have to learn to let go, to trust, to receive trust. The most delicate love in life is like this—to respect someone's freedom without clinging to them, but still to be there for them.
Every moment, the people on the boat create all the small beautiful activities in the world—one person is dancing, another is laughing; some are telling a story with a sigh, some are singing, some are silently doing the small things of the world for two hundred hours. These small feats are what make life great. So I say: no matter how much the boat rocks in the rental cycle, if there is compassion for people in it—a little empathy, a little patience, a little responsibility—then the river will be calm, the boat will survive, and we will all be able to depend on each other, loving, respecting, and being there for each other. Life then is not just about flowing—it is a mixture of remembering, building, and letting go.
