Stay curious, stay humble.

On Liberty

If you can do this, there’s really no need to read any of the words below. But because I can’t, I need to use writing to organize my thoughts and remind myself.

Audio recorded on Dublin Bus 46A

Who

I’ve always read Wang Xiaobo’s books sporadically and fragmentarily. Whenever I pick up “The Golden Age” again, I always feel the joy of reading it for the first time. The name Wang Er comes from there. Binary opposition, yin and yang poles, binary encoding, wave-particle duality, binary mind, being a fool. I really love the character “二” (er/two), and I might well dedicate an entire discussion to it alone. But I might change my name at any time - if you invite me to chat or drink, whatever you call me, I really won’t care.

What to Do

Have you ever had this experience: you accidentally learn a term, casually search for it, and suddenly discover another world? Parallel universes aren’t science fiction at all - assuming an objective world exists, each person’s subjective view is their own world.

Not staying on the surface of things, trying to broaden one’s cognition, approaching small matters with curiosity to dig deeper - this way life gains some not-too-vulgar pleasures.

This is an era of information overload. Adding more information to block people is foolish. If possible, I only want to recommend some “keywords” for you to search. Let’s try to sit down together, open our eyes and take a good look at this world. Where there seem to be cracks, let’s dig a shovel - maybe golden light will burst forth!

Games, movies, music, philosophy, God, Buddha, cults, society, psychology, artificial intelligence, new media. I rarely find things I’m completely uninterested in lately, at least since I learned to start switching different angles to look at the same problem.

I might chat with you using voice, or write text like letters. Any content is possible. I’ll try my best to explain why you should be interested in these things, but I can’t guarantee they’ll all hit your excitement points.

Why

Digging is a fun thing. Being ready to dig at any time is a life attitude.

Nouns and definitions are also an interesting phenomenon. Imagine long ago, I was jumping around in the forest. There was something red and round on a tree, not too heavy. When it hit my head, it hurt a little. It smelled nice. I took a bite - oh my, so refreshing, I didn’t know how to describe it. I picked several, ran to others, shaking and swaying, babbling incoherently, forcibly stuffing one to a girl. She took a bite and smiled so sweetly, like the fruit itself. She asked me what this was. I grinned, suddenly raised an eyebrow and said: “Apple.”

A name is a concept, an interface connecting experiential cognition with phonetic symbols. The process from a name’s birth to the continuous expansion of its definition is interesting, yet mostly unknown to people.

With names, we can communicate and discuss. Without names, everyone can only shake and sway, discuss enthusiastically, yet always feel they’re missing the point - like finishing foreplay and then getting dressed to go home. Though you’re sweaty, you feel something’s missing. Thank goodness for the internet and search engines. Today, after knowing a term, people can search on Baidu, Google, Zhihu, WeChat official accounts, and Toutiao everywhere. But the scary thing is, if you don’t learn new terms, don’t explore after seeing them, you might never understand another side of this world. Your path becomes narrower as you live, and you become more rigid.

But remembering nouns isn’t the goal itself. Even if you read countless articles and hear countless discussions, no matter what formalin is or what kind of meat it is, what flavor those roadside lamb skewers had on your way home from middle school, how much happiness they brought you - only you know this. Understanding something has never been essentially connected to whether you can remember times, places, and names. “Keywords” only provide you the possibility of communicating with others. If there were only one person on Earth, he wouldn’t need language at all. All final understanding is built on feelings.

The nouns in your brain are like armor on your body. Stringing together those smooth-surfaced, textured pieces that make crisp sounds when knocked, and wearing them on your body - it’s hard not to have the illusion that you’re a great general, hard not to become inflated. Well-made weapons and armor, used properly, lead to victory; used improperly, they become shackles. This principle is simple.

But this is for later. I feel like I’m streaking now, occasionally picking up two leaves for modesty. So I still need to dig for the feelings behind different names, still need to memorize more vocabulary, to put some clothes on myself first.

I want to recommend some names to you - names that excite me, even names that make me re-recognize this world. But these names probably won’t have any specific categorical properties, nor will they be standard answers. I deeply know how much I love concise answers, but I’m gradually understanding how easy it is to be incited, used, and deceived when one is used to following standard answers.

Fast food delivery may be quick, good, and economical, but that happiness of using only the remaining ingredients in the fridge when there’s no Wi-Fi or recipes, and creating something satisfying - that happiness can’t be bought anywhere.

And this ability obviously can’t be cultivated by ordering more takeout.

Stay curious, walk, observe, dig. I just want to cheer for this lifestyle.

How

“Perhaps, I guess, maybe, probably, somewhat”

These are my commonly used words. This makes me look like a complete weakling, but I guess it also gives people the courage to suddenly laugh, put everything down, and do things others don’t understand when facing real choices.

People need balance. Those who agree to everything without thinking often lack authority. Responses given after serious consideration of your requests are more likely to gain your trust, aren’t they?

Because knowing that things are often not black and white, one makes fewer absolute judgments in daily life.

“Eat shit.”

When the colonel who no one writes to puts everything down to persist in irrational matters, when his wife asks what they’ll eat from now on, the old colonel uses these two words as his answer. This is exactly where Márquez’s brilliance lies.

Words inevitably carry some of my own views. In my writing, I inevitably use sentence patterns like “although… but…” but I hope you don’t mistake the latter half as the key point. I don’t pursue objectivity; I only hope I won’t be overwhelmed by excessive subjectivity.

I long to share my discoveries and joy with you. I hope my words can make people calm down and breathe seriously once. This desire will keep me writing.

Irregular updates.

Honestly, I don’t need your attention - people who scroll through Moments will probably see it anyway, and those who don’t scroll won’t click to read even if they follow. But I believe, even with the fanatical belief of a Northeast shaman’s obsession with snow, in “fate.” That you’re reading this is fate, but I’ve said nothing, which makes me feel guilty. Let me give you a secret: drink eight glasses of water daily. Be careful of addiction, don’t get obsessed. For those living overseas in double-story single buildings with eight girls sharing one toilet, please consider your circumstances.

I wish myself strength, courage, and patience to sit down and chat with you about yesterday, today, and tomorrow of this world. I’ll try to be concise and worthy of your time.

Epilogue

“Do you think where you live is very important?”

A friend asked me this. My confusion is that I know roughly where my earthly body is, but I haven’t figured out where my life actually is, so I can’t say whether this is important or not. I only know that when I go out in the morning and see the old gentleman in his green beret, plaid scarf, and gray-brown coat arm-in-arm with his wife, stopping to smile and say good morning to me, my mind becomes pure; I only remember the toy store clerk in children’s clothing who, after introducing new products and functions, started playing with the toys himself as if no one was watching; swans and pigeons aren’t very afraid of people, but after going to an island once, I’m actually more afraid of seagulls that screech and dive to scare people; I’ve lost my wallet several times, and each time people had to trouble themselves to give it to the police who then mailed it back home.

These all seem related to “people.” Fortunately, we’re all still alive, and being alive should mean there’s possibility for change.

The meaning of natural scenery and cultural landscapes doesn’t exist because they need “human” interpretation. More accurately, when humans developed the need to interpret everything, they invented and created the word “meaning.”

Change what you can change.

Best wishes.