My Son Is Already Sixteen
Before I knew it, my son is sixteen; today is his sixteenth birthday. I am a little slow to react to age; to this day I still feel I am myself only a teenager, about the same age as my son, full of curiosity about the unknown world, and I never expected that my son had quietly grown up.
Last summer vacation, the child kept clamoring to find a part-time job to earn some living expenses, and I refused him on the grounds of the epidemic. This year, when my son raised the request again, I think I will agree; I will only ask him to take precautions against the epidemic, for experiencing life early is no bad thing.
I am satisfied with the child in every respect. I need not worry about his studies, especially his science grades. He has long ranked first or second in math and physics; chemistry and biology he also does well in; his best English result was third place; only Chinese language is merely average. But I believe that, with his learning ability, over the next two years he can raise all his subjects to become a well-balanced top student.
He is also not a wasteful, spendthrift child or a boomer; he has a strong sense of independence and always wants to earn money through his own labor. The only thing I have pushed him to do over the years is to learn some medicine from me while young, whether or not he becomes a doctor in the future; I always tell him that even if he is not a doctor, the Chinese and Western medical knowledge he learns can safeguard his own body. He has now chosen mathematics as his lifelong pursuit, but the foundation of medicine has already been laid. I believe that in his long life there will always be many leisure hours in which to revisit the medical knowledge he learned with me as a child. Medical knowledge is useful to everyone; the birth, aging, illness and death of human beings are all closely bound up with medicine.
As humans have fewer and fewer natural enemies, human longevity will grow ever longer. In 1990 there were about 95,000 centenarians in the world; by 2015, centenarians had exceeded 450,000; it is estimated that by 2100 the number of centenarians worldwide will reach 25 million. But the number of depression sufferers is also climbing at an unprecedented rate; by 2030 depression will rank first on the list of medical burdens. In addition, according to data released by the China National Committee on Aging, by 2030 the number of dementia patients in China will reach as many as 22.2 million.
A great dilemma facing modern people is this: as we live ever longer, it becomes ever harder not to grow weary of our own lives, and ever harder to guarantee our quality of life. To remain emotionally steady, happy and content, undisturbed by life's circumstances, is a lofty life attainment—it requires great adaptability. It is the ideal state we all long for, after all, no one wants to suffer. I hope my child will be happy and content throughout his life, and do not much care how great his achievements may be.
I too occasionally feel listless and bored, but usually this feeling lasts only a short time. Depressed mood means persistent pessimism and dejection; transient boredom and unhappiness do not count as depression. From my own experience, what most helps a person's physical and mental health is knowledge. The process of seeking knowledge drives away boredom, and the knowledge one acquires is greatly beneficial to physical and mental health. The more one reads, the wiser one's life, the better one's state of mind, and the lower the probability of developing dementia. Of course, there are also many long-lived elders who never read in their lives and remain physically and mentally healthy. But for most people, the broader their knowledge, the healthier their body and mind, the longer their life, and the higher the quality of their later years.
So I do not wish to stifle my son's interest and enthusiasm for lifelong learning; only by keeping that interest and enthusiasm alive can he most likely live a healthy, happy and joyful life. It is highly probable that our next generation will live longer than we do; parents must take the long view if they are to raise a healthy, happy child. Life has evolved in nature for four billion years and, in adapting to its environment, has developed extraordinarily marvelous and powerful instincts. As long as one does not strangle the innate instincts one is born with, the vast majority of people will have no trouble learning and surviving.
The reason my son's academic performance improved by leaps and bounds after entering high school is simply that, during primary and middle school, we chose to let him grow naturally, without forcing growth, so he did not come to hate school. Too many exhausted children not only hate school but hate life. Brain-science research confirms that the human brain does not reach a good learning state until late adolescence—this confirms Confucius's saying, “At fifteen I set my heart upon learning”; to force a child into high-intensity study before that only backfires. Heaven grants everyone a strong appetite for knowledge, but unfortunately many people's appetite is stifled too early. Too many people have been crushed under the pressure of study and life before puberty; this pressure damages the brain and leads to lifelong depression and learning aversion.
I am grateful for the popular-science works I have read; they have let me understand many laws of nature and taught me to act in accordance with those laws in life. One of the most prominent features distinguishing humans from other animals is that the knowledge humans invent and create can be transmitted through writing; one must read many books to be less ignorant and anxious. The more blind spots one has in one's knowledge, the more mistakes one makes, the more emotional problems one has, and the more pain and trouble one creates for oneself and others.