Content in Solitude, Holding the Bottom Line
My mother's illness was a watershed in my life. Before it, I lived a rather flamboyant life, cherishing the ideal of an eagle striking the sky, hoping for a life of fierce and stirring passion. Even now, when I occasionally slip back into that old way of living, I can still feel a remnant of such a soul within me. But after my mother fell ill, day after day of life experience, and the repeated partings and deaths that followed, turned me into someone who deeply loves quiet.
My mother's illness transformed me from a businessman into a physician—a TCM apprentice who lived day and night among a group of patients who shared her suffering. After several years of treating people this way, I gradually came to know another kind of life. Now, all the bustle of the world seems far from me. Although I live in Beijing, one of the liveliest cities in China, my heart has reached the state my late mentor expected of me—still as a virgin at rest. Having withdrawn from all strife, I hide in a corner, quietly studying medicine. Living truthfully and low-keyly—this state, I believe, best suits my life, and I do not intend to change it.
After so many years of tempering in society, I cannot claim never to have done anything unethical, but I can affirm that I have held the bottom line. In the future of my life, I do not intend to let this bottom line fall, because it is the firmest defensive system that allows me to live with a clear conscience. This defense has blocked all kinds of outside temptations, and it has also blocked life-ruining disasters that might otherwise have swallowed me.
A person living in this world has two most important tasks: to handle well the relationship with oneself, and to handle well the relationship with others. Being content in solitude helped me handle the relationship with myself; holding the bottom line helped me handle the relationships with others. Having achieved these two, I think that even if the world outside is storm-tossed, my own heart can remain consistently calm.