Max Klein

I sat at the top of the tower in hong kong and looked out over the bay. The view was awesome, the room was awesome – everything was expensive and great. Except that it wasn’t. I felt no different than before – the money I had earned had done nothing to make me any happier.

I’d worked so much, and sacrificed so much to be able to sit in this room, but I felt as miserable as ever.

I sat up there, looking at the bay below, watching the big machines work on the land reclaim project. The ferry picked up people from one side, and took them to the other side, a task it had been doing for years, and will continue to do for a long time to come.

There was a tap on the door. I stood up, arranged the smile on my face and opened the door. He strode in, a round man with a constant smirk, and his confident loud presence seemed to immediately change the dynamic of the room.

The man who had taught me everything I knew. The man who had showed me how to be confident, who had taught me how to sacrifice to get what I wanted. I needed him once more, and had called for him once more, but this time, the task was different.

This time, he was to teach me, not how to become rich, but how to make true value in my life. How to make the kind of wealth I really wanted, and not the wealth I had mistakenly gathered.

When I had told him, he had confidently and loudly assured me on the phone that he would show me the missing element. He said he knew the thing I was missing and the money could not fill.

He said he would take me into the belly of hong kong, and I would find what I was looking for that night. He clapped his hands and laughed out loud, as he usually did, and I looked at him, wondering what lay behind that laugh.

Art
The room we walked into was filled with many men in suits. They all sat on sofas in groups that included young pretty girls. We sat at the back, a single bottle of whiskey filled out in front of us.

Then a spotlight shone on the stage. Two girls walked out, holding a big sheet of a paper. A thin, dapper man strode out from the side, picked up a paintbrush and quickly drew a chinese character on that sheet of paper. He was done in 20 seconds.

Then the bidding started. That sheet of paper sold for US$9000.

He looked at me and smiled. That’s art. It’s not in the paper, it’s in the man. Your art has to be in you for you to be happy. Be proud of what you make, and you will be proud of yourself.

Discipline
We walked and looked at the people doing tai-chi in the night. He looked at me and said : this is not a sport for the impatient. When you do this, you have to be disciplined – you have to repeat yourself everyday, when you fail, you don’t blame yourself, you just stick with it.

Know what you want, keep training yourself to strive for it correctly.

The kung-fu house had men punching in the air, and I marvelled at the way they jumped. He looked at me and said, they have spent their lives in controlled discipline, to get this far. Do you think they feel confined during all those periods they had to practice? No, they felt free.

Be humble in what you want to do and what you want to do. Your sacrifice should be your greatest joy, and not something you lose.

Beauty
Later in the night, we sat in a Karaoke Lounge, voices screaming around us, whiskey splashed in glasses and on the tables, someone yelling out for another bottle. He pointed to the girl sitting beside me and said – look at the perfection of her face. Look as her smile curves, as she glows and is radiant. You laugh and you are enjoying yourself – that’s because you are surrounded by beauty, or an approximation of beauty. Around you is song and pretty girls.

That’s human life, my friend, if you give that up, in the end what will you have?

Violence
The man punched at him, pleading even as he fought, that we should just pay the bill. They screamed at each other and a few punches were thrown. The police came, and a few notes were flung on the floor.

In the taxi, he looked at me smiling and said : I enjoy fighting every now and then.

Friendship
The next morning, I woke up with my head splitting in two. The headache was awful, I had no idea where anyone else was. I was in the room, the sun was cheerfully peeking through the window blinds. The air was fresh and the view was awesome.

On my phone was a text message: “Enjoying life has nothing to do with what you have, it has to do with who you are hanging out with”.

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