Lights Along the Road · Hiroshi Kanda
Chapter 26: Firm, Clear and Cheerful
The Words: Rosa Luxemburg, 1916
On 28 December 1916, Rosa Luxemburg wrote from prison to her friend Mathilde Wurm. It is not a gentle letter. Much of it is sharp: she scolds her friend, quite bluntly, for complaining and for losing heart, and she says that wailing is the business of the weak. But in the middle of the scolding comes a passage that many readers remember. In my own words, she wrote: see that you stay a human being. To be a human being is the main thing above all, and that means being firm, clear and cheerful, yes, cheerful in spite of everything. Near its end, the letter grows warm again.
What makes these words shine is where they were written. Luxemburg was in a prison cell, cut off from her work and from most of her friends, during the First World War. She had every reason to be gloomy. Yet she chose cheerfulness, not as a way of ignoring the troubles of the world, but as a kind of strength. For her, being cheerful in hard times was part of being a good human being.
The Life Behind the Words
Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 in Eastern Europe. She was a brilliant student and became a writer and campaigner for working people, writing in German and in other languages. She was small in body, walked with a slight limp from childhood, and was full of energy, wit and warmth. During the war she was held in prison for long periods. Her letters from those years are among the most moving parts of her writing.
Those letters are full of small living things. She wrote about the birds she watched and listened to, the clouds she could see from the prison yard, the plants she pressed and collected, and the sound of rain. Even in a cell, she found ways to keep her mind alive and her heart open. She was released at the end of the war, and she died in 1919, in the troubled months that followed. What remains from her prison years is a voice that refused to let walls make it smaller.
What the Words Ask of Us
Luxemburg's three words, firm, clear and cheerful, make a good small guide for hard times. Firm means not giving up what we know is right. Clear means seeing our situation honestly, without lying to ourselves. Cheerful means keeping a warm and lively spirit, even when things are difficult. The three belong together. Firmness without cheer can become hard and cold; cheer without clarity can become careless. Together they make a person both strong and kind.
Think of Lena, forty-one, who is looking after her two children alone while recovering from a long illness. Some days she feels close to despair. She decides to borrow Luxemburg's words. She stays firm about the few things that matter most, such as meals together and bedtime stories. She is clear with herself about what she cannot do this month, and she asks a friend for help. And she lets herself laugh with her children whenever she can. The problems do not disappear, but Lena feels more like herself again.
Similar Words From Around the World
The poet Saadi, writing in Persian in the first chapter of his book Gulistan, or The Rose Garden, says that human beings are limbs of one body. When one limb is in pain, the others cannot rest. This is what being a human being meant for Luxemburg too: not only cheerfulness for oneself, but a deep sense of belonging to everyone else. Her cheerfulness was not selfish comfort. It grew from caring about all people, and especially about those who suffer.
The thinker Mencius, whose teachings were written down in Chinese, says that anyone who suddenly sees a small child about to fall into a well feels alarm and pity. He believed that this shows the beginning of goodness in every human heart. Luxemburg's letters, with their love for birds, plants and people, show that same beginning, grown wide. Mencius adds hope to her words: the seed of being truly human is already in each of us, waiting to be cared for.
Living It Today
These words help anyone going through a hard season: a person in hospital, a worker who has lost a job, a young person far from home for the first time, an older person living with new limits. You may not choose your walls, but you can choose to stay firm, clear and cheerful inside them. Cheerfulness here is not pretending. It is a brave decision to keep your heart alive.
This week, when something goes wrong, ask yourself three short questions. What must I stay firm about? What do I need to see clearly? And where can I find one cheerful thing today? Then look for that cheerful thing, even if it is only a bird at the window or a cloud passing by. Luxemburg found joy in such things inside a prison. Wherever you are, there is a window somewhere, and something good on the other side of it.
Chapter 27: At Peace With Life
The Words: Amado Nervo, about 1917
Around 1917, Amado Nervo published a book of poems called Elevation. One poem in it, called At Peace, has been loved by readers of Spanish for more than a hundred years. In my own words, it begins: very near the sunset of my life, I bless you, Life, because you never gave me false hope, nor unfair work, nor pain I did not deserve. And it ends with a short, calm sentence spoken directly to life itself: Life, you owe me nothing; we are at peace.
Between the beginning and the end, the poet looks back over his years. He says that he has been the builder of his own fate. If he drew sweetness or bitterness from things, it was because he had put sweetness or bitterness into them; when he planted roses, he always gathered roses. He admits that winter will follow his green years, but he says that life never told him that May, the month of spring, would last forever. Some nights of sorrow were long, but life had never promised only good nights, and some of his nights were deeply calm. It is the voice of a man who has stopped blaming and started thanking.
The Life Behind the Words
Nervo was born in 1870 in the Americas and wrote in Spanish. As a young man he studied for some years to become a priest, but he left that path and turned to writing. He worked as a journalist and became one of the most popular poets of his time, admired for his gentle music and his search for inner peace. Later he served his country as a diplomat, living for many years in Europe and, at the end, in South America.
His life was not without sorrow. The woman he loved died in 1912, and he wrote a whole book of grief for her. His poems after that time became quieter and more spiritual, turning towards acceptance and calm. At Peace belongs to that later voice. He was not yet fifty when the book appeared, yet he wrote as one who felt his evening coming. He died in 1919, while living far from home. Many readers since then have found in his poem a model for looking back without bitterness.
What the Words Ask of Us
Nervo's poem asks us to look at our lives with honest gratitude. That does not mean pretending everything was good. He speaks of long nights of sorrow. But he refuses to think of life as a debtor who has cheated him. Instead he sees how much of his life he himself shaped, and how many gifts came alongside the pain. To be at peace with life is to stop keeping a list of complaints against it.
Think of Anton, eighty, who sits one afternoon with an old photo album. For years he has looked at it and seen only what went wrong: a business that failed, a move he regretted, friends he lost touch with. This time he tries to look as Nervo did. He sees the business that taught him patience, the move that led him to his wife, the friends whose kindness shaped him. He closes the album with a smile. Life, he thinks, you owe me nothing. We are at peace.
Similar Words From Around the World
A woman known as Julian, who lived a life of prayer in the late 1300s and wrote in English, recorded in the twenty-seventh chapter of her book Revelations of Divine Love words that she believed were spoken to her by God: "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." For her, these words came from faith. Readers of any belief can feel in them a peace close to Nervo's: a deep trust that, in the end, life is not our enemy.
In 1819 the poet Kobayashi Issa wrote a haiku, a very short poem in Japanese, after the death of his little daughter. In my own words, it says: this world of dew is a world of dew, and yet, and yet. Dew is gone by the middle of the morning; so is everything in this world. Issa accepted that, and still his heart said "and yet". This echo adds tenderness to Nervo's peace. To be at peace with life does not mean we stop loving or missing what we lose. Acceptance and love can live in the same heart.
Living It Today
Nervo wrote near what he felt was the evening of his life, and older readers may feel his words most deeply. But they help at every age. A young person after a hard year can look for what that year gave as well as what it took. Someone in the middle of life can stop blaming the past and see how much of the present they shaped themselves. Gratitude for the whole road makes the road ahead lighter.
This week, write a short letter to your own life, as Nervo did. Begin with the words "Thank you, Life, for" and name a few things: people, lessons, small joys, even difficulties that taught you something. You may also write one thing you forgive life for. Keep the letter somewhere safe and read it on a hard day. Peace with life is not a gift we wait for. It is a letter we can begin to write today.