Everything Can Be Understood and Analyzed
I am an atheist who has always believed that reason and evidence can help me understand the world. If there is something I cannot yet understand or analyze, it can only be because my knowledge is still insufficient; I will go and learn. And I believe that, after learning and raising my own level of understanding, I will come to comprehend what was previously unknown to me.
Living in this world, I have always been full of a skeptical spirit. This spirit of skepticism has helped me enormously; it has meant that I have never blindly followed anyone. In my eyes there is no supreme authority in this world, let alone a god. That is why I could never become a religious believer, nor a narrow-minded, prejudiced science fanatic.
Everything that exists has its reasonableness, and I like to explore that reasonableness.
Confucius said that at fifteen he set his heart on learning. I was not as precocious as the old master. At fifteen I was still more set on playing. It was only around sixteen or seventeen that I reined in my love of play and set my heart on learning.
My way of learning is a little unusual. I like to use my head to analyze problems, and I do not accept any conclusion that I have not worked out through my own effort. But conclusions reached through my own effort can sometimes be wrong, so I am also willing to actively overturn any conclusion that practice proves to be wrong.
I venture to think this attitude can train a person's brain to be less "cha-huo" (a Hubei dialect word, hard to translate, so I leave it untranslated). It makes one neither stubborn and self-opinionated nor prone to blind faith and blind following.
But not everyone is willing to understand and analyze the world in this way, so sometimes communicating with people becomes a thoroughly painful business. This is the root reason I do not love making friends.
Many people stubbornly cling to their own views and simply refuse to judge whether those views are right or wrong based on data and logic. All they demand is the single word "belief," and they tolerate no questioning. Talking to such people is pure torment; in truth they only need an obedient audience. They air their views, and we just nod along. If we offer disagreement, we trigger their fierce resentment.
I study Chinese medicine, yet I fear most of all arguing with fellow practitioners of Chinese medicine, and I fear arguing with Western medicine, and I fear arguing with ordinary TCM fans or TCM bashers. Because I update my understanding of Chinese medicine through analysis and evidence, I often reach conclusions that differ from everyone else's. I am merely offering my own views and stating my own opinions. Yet there is always someone who comes along to tell me that I must unify my views with theirs and take their understanding as the standard—I truly do not know where these fellows get their confidence.
Occasionally I also wade into current affairs, offering my views on major issues affecting the nation and people's livelihood. In my usual style, I still value mathematical logic and understand and analyze the world from evidence. Sometimes the conclusions I analyze out differ greatly from what everyone expects, and many readers shout curses at me, claiming I am spreading heresy.
But usually, as time goes by, my conclusions are proved to have been quite forward-looking. It is just that it is no use at all; the bad things that are meant to happen still happen, and there is little I can block.
Over time, I gradually came to love hiding away. Hiding in a place where not many people can disturb me, silently reading and writing. I also gradually, calmly, came to realize that the world is just the way it is; what we truly cannot change is the conformist thinking of the crowd.
Then let us do our best to save ourselves! Life is like being shipwrecked on the open sea; each person can only save himself, and can save only himself.