Life Can Finally Gradually Return to Normal

This outbreak of the epidemic in Beijing has lasted for more than 40 days. Tomorrow we can finally basically return to normal life, although it is still hard to say whether the epidemic will rebound. It is just that from now on, Beijing residents, like those of Wuhan and Shenzhen, will have to take a nucleic acid test every 72 hours before they can move about in society.

Twenty-eight days can form a new habit; more than forty days of working from home have changed the mindset, life, and work state of many people. The impact of this epidemic on Beijing residents will be the most profound one in three years. The city of Beijing after this wave will not be quite the same as the Beijing before; many Beijing residents may henceforth live more cautiously.

I remember returning from Beijing to my hometown in Hubei last October. After getting off the high-speed rail at Wuhan Station, I went to Yangchunhu Long-Distance Bus Station to catch a bus. The once-prosperous long-distance bus station had very few passengers, and the snack shops inside had closed. Seeing my hometown so desolate, I could not help but feel a pang of sadness. One leaf falls and one knows the world is autumn; behind the bleak scene at Yangchunhu Station are many families who have lost their livelihoods, and people's lives must be extremely hard.

Friends working in some hospitals in Wuhan told me that the number of patients in major Wuhan hospitals is far lower than before. There are two reasons: first, population movement has been affected by the epidemic, and many people no longer travel to places like Wuhan for medical care, choosing instead to seek treatment nearby; second, everyone's income has dropped, and they lack the money to receive better medical services. Friends working in hospitals in Shanghai, Guangdong, and Beijing told me of a situation similar to Wuhan.

Although the worst days have passed, the psychological blow to everyone is considerable, and confidence is hard to restore quickly. On the contrary, friends in my social circle who live in prefecture-level and county-level cities often post photos rich in the warmth of everyday life; the bustling street scenes there are just as they were before the epidemic. I truly hope their days can stay this beautiful forever, and I hope that all the first- and second-tier cities in the country can recover their former prosperity as soon as possible after this wave of the epidemic. Fourteen billion people need to eat; a hungry person is capable of anything. Without economic prosperity, it is hard to have long-term social stability and security.

After this outbreak began in Beijing, my wife said to me that many things I seem to know in advance as if I could foretell the future, and asked whether people like me must live in great pain. I answered no, at least no more painfully than ordinary people. I am not prophetic either; I simply think according to common sense rather than being swayed by social emotions and political factors. If a person can do this, their judgment of the social situation will be more accurate.

I know most people cannot do this, including those highly titled experts, scholars, and government officials. They do not have the habits of thought that I have, nor do they have the freedom and convenience of holding no office, so their thinking and public speeches are bound by too many constraints. The level of social development is determined by the average level of everyone, so even if some people do have good predictive ability, they cannot stop the trend of social development.

I knew this as early as high school. Back then I often worried about the fate of the country and its people, and I was very unhappy that some social problems could not be corrected. Once my beloved teacher had a long talk with me on the corridor outside the classroom. He told me that a society composed of multitudes is just like this; you must accept and adapt to it, and not look at all of this from a God's-eye view.

His words healed my inner affliction. At the time I could not fully understand them, but my heartfelt trust and admiration for my teacher led me, in the long river of life, to frequently chew over all the words he had spoken to me. Over time I came to understand his deeper meaning and internalized his teachings into my own blood.

In an age like this, what my teacher taught me back then is especially useful. We live in a diverse age with many problems and sharp contradictions, and many people may feel resentful and full of complaints about society. But if one can perceive the inherent complexity of a society composed of multitudes, one's state of mind becomes much more peaceful. Heaven and earth give birth to the myriad people, and they are inherently uneven. Just as some people can solve the hardest finale problems in exams while most cannot even understand the solution when it is explained, we must not become angry about this. If one cannot recognize and accept this, it shows that one's wisdom is not yet sufficiently rounded and needs further cultivation.

There will still be many difficulties in the future, and life may be hard to be as passionate and colorful as before, but our inner world can remain unaffected by this. This is an age in which most people need to grow inwardly. Disasters are not entirely without merit; at the very least they can promote the growth of our minds. If, under this environmental pressure, our minds grow more mature, then our lives will still be happy. What we have lost is only some external things, which are actually not that important.

Since the epidemic began at the end of 2019, I have long persisted in this kind of fireside-chat-style writing. Some friends told me that the articles I write have helped them greatly, freeing them from anxiety and depression. Some readers even told me that they printed every one of my articles out, bound them into volumes, and read them often. I am deeply gratified by this. I am just an insignificant common person; that my articles can free other common people from suffering and bring them joy shows that my work is not without value. At the very least I have achieved what Buddhism calls "benefiting and bringing happiness to sentient beings," and this gives me the motivation to keep going. I also hope everyone can find new meaning and a new source of happiness. Life in this world is but a few short decades; do not waste them away in sorrow, anger, and pain.