Back to Classes; Continuing to Write in My Spare Time
After a summer at home, I returned to school around seven in the evening on August 30. I picked up new books during evening self-study, and on August 31 we officially began classes.
After an absence of more than fifty days, everything on the campus where I had spent a school year was familiar. Before the vacation, the lotus in the lotus pond had just opened; now that the vacation is over, the lotus is almost finished.
Most of my classmates have returned. My life has become regular again, and the sundries of the vacation can be left behind. Life at school is simple: attend classes by schedule during the day and study in the evening. Three meals a day, a nap after lunch, ball games and runs every day—everything proceeds in order. This regular life is actually quite good for one's body.
The school's courses do not put too much pressure on me, and I still have enough free time to write my book, though my complete reference materials are all at home. In my field, the school library's books are not as complete as my home collection, so writing will inevitably be affected to some degree, but I will try my best to overcome this difficulty.
During the vacation I discussed my book's writing plan with some old friends in the medical field, and they gave me much valuable advice. Even the book's title was revised on their suggestion. The framework is basically settled; my book will focus on practical solutions for refractory diseases.
The general introduction will cover the principles of formula composition; the individual treatises will be organized by symptom and disease category. Each category is a chapter, and each chapter is divided into an overview, cognate formulas, cognate medicinals, cognate cases, and suggestions for large composite-formula composition.
This structure is very clear and fits clinical practice better. I will strive to let readers easily master the formula-composition techniques of my approach and, through studying related cases, improve their clinical results.
This architecture lets the book's size flex. If I cover only the few disease types I currently research, 200,000–300,000 characters may suffice. If I try to list as many disease types as possible, two or three million characters is possible. Yet Li Shizhen's Bencao Gangmu, hailed as a monumental medical work, runs to only 1.9 million characters.
To write a comprehensive TCM clinical book would likely consume the rest of my life. I do not yet know what the final book will look like; it may grow toward being grand and comprehensive as I write, or it may not.
Writing several million characters is not hard for me, given that I have already written 5.3 million. By character count alone, that amounts to two and a half copies of Bencao Gangmu.
In 2024 I proposed to my family that they grant me ten years' leave, so that I would not have to earn a living and could study full-time, starting with preparing for the college entrance exam.
My family agreed. In the blink of an eye, two years have passed. These two years have been rewarding. I hope to continue eight more years of a pure, integrated study-and-research life, and to finish my book during that time.
Of course, during this period I will inevitably do observation and practice on the clinical front line; after all, we medical students ultimately all end up in medical institutions of one level or another.
There are always conditions we want to change. I like to use action rather than words to do something about them. Effort may not always yield results, but without effort there is no hope at all.
Thank you, school, for using a gate to keep much noise away, letting me focus more fully on what I love doing. And thank you to my family, for letting me be myself.