Reflections on My 47th Birthday: Steadily Moving Forward in Ordinary Days

Today is my 47th birthday and also the registration day for my second year of university—the second time I have entered university. After today I can no longer say I am only 47; I should say I am already 48. After celebrating my birthday at home with my wife and child, I will take the high-speed train back to school to begin the new academic year.

This summer at home, I used AI to organize the articles I have written over the past eleven years. I sorted out more than 3,000 articles totaling over 5.3 million characters. These articles accumulated from writing every day over the past eleven years, and I deleted some along the way.

If published as books of 200,000 characters each, these articles would make twenty-six books. But now, and for the next ten years, I do not plan to publish any books or to actively publish papers; perhaps I never will.

I do not want to be unconventional, nor do I want to live any kind of "paradigm life."

Chan Buddhism has an anecdote (or, in Buddhist terms, a gong'an). As an old Zen master lay dying, his attendant asked him to leave a death verse—a philosophical, poem-like dying saying—for his disciples to learn from. The old master replied: "Must I leave a verse in order to die?" And with that, he passed on.

When I was a child I also read Chekhov's novella The Man in a Case. Its protagonist, Belikov, lived his whole life inside all kinds of cases, and his catchphrase was, "Let's just hope nothing happens." Chekhov's story has an amusing ending: "And life did not become any better for it."

I have cited these two anecdotes many times to remind myself not to be too rigid, as if living must have a formula or a ritual.

In 2019, when I visited Yaoshan Temple in Jinshi, Hunan, on a whim I wrote a classical poem:

The tiny room is like a prison, deep and hard to fathom;
The reins of fame and locks of profit are not easy to shed.
Heaven and earth have a Way, but no visible trace;
The sages made rules to bind ordinary men.

Since childhood I have hated all paradigm lives and rigid thinking. No one may demand that I live and think according to a fixed formula—not even I myself. Any life that feels as if it has been stuffed into a "case" is boring.

Of course, arguing by sophistry, not wanting to enter a case can itself be called another kind of case-thinking, only fifty steps mocking a hundred. I admit that is true; but being less rigid and having more room for free imagination will always suit my temperament better.

Our ancestors were remarkable; they invented the doctrine of the Mean. Confucius's grandson Zisi said: "Be broad and great, yet refined and minute; reach the highest excellence, yet practice the Mean." Zhuangzi advocated that a person should stand midway between the "useful" and the "useless," with some ability to adapt to sudden surprises.

I cannot imagine a higher life philosophy than this, so I plan to borrow it for occasional use. Toward all the rules and restrictions of the human world, I take an attitude of neither violating nor catering to them—more elegantly, neither too close nor too far, now near, now far. This way I neither offend others nor force myself, a win-win. But it requires always keeping a proper distance from the human world.

Zhuangzi is my favorite ancient philosopher. His style is witty, his insight transparent, and he always leaves the reader crying out in satisfaction. He advocated an attitude of life of "dragging one's tail in the mud."

In the chapter "Autumn Floods" of Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi tells a story: he was fishing by the Pu River when the king of Chu sent an official to invite him to take office in Chu. Without turning his head, Zhuangzi asked the official a question: "I hear that in Chu there is a sacred turtle that has been dead for three thousand years and is worshipped in the temple. Tell me, would this turtle rather be dead and enjoy honor, or rather drag its tail alive in the mud?"

The Chu envoy who had come to persuade Zhuangzi to take office answered: "It would rather be alive and drag its tail in the mud." Zhuangzi said: "Begone! I will drag my tail in the mud." The lovable, eccentric old fellow said these words without once turning his head, and went back to his fishing.

Whether this story actually happened in history or was a fable invented on the spur of the moment by a fantastical eccentric like Zhuangzi, we can see in it his open, at-ease attitude toward life.

I like such an attitude and am willing to practice it. For human beings, power, money, and social status beyond basic survival needs are essentially shackles that take away the freedom and comfort of "dragging one's tail in the mud."

If human desires are not curbed, they will eventually rebound on the person. Cao Xueqin wrote: "With more than enough after death, one forgets to withdraw the hand; when the road ahead runs out, one thinks of turning back." Most people only think of turning back when the road ahead has run out, and by then it is too late.

Cao Xueqin also wrote: "A thorough knowledge of the world's affairs is itself learning; practiced human relations are themselves literature." Cao Xueqin, who had seen the storms of life, truly melted his life experience into a treasure that awakens the world. But a thorough knowledge of the world may only come around age fifty. Only after we have watched the ups and downs of human life and grown used to its warmth and cold can we understand many truths and reach the state of "knowing the mandate of heaven."

The great poet Du Lu distilled his life wisdom into another couplet: "You and your kind shall perish, body and name; yet the great rivers flow on, unimpeded, to eternity." I especially like using it to remind myself to stay away from the arena of fame and profit and the circles of dispute. Everyone must die one day; even the earth will one day be destroyed. Why bind oneself with fame and profit?

The fame, gain, and position we pursue—the Buddha likened them to honey on the edge of a knife. That dab of honey on the blade is not enough to still hunger, yet it threatens to cut the tongue. Those who have bitten off their tongues and lost their lives licking this honey appear in the daily news in no small number; should this not be warning enough for us?

The TCM classic Huangdi Neijing contains this passage: "Next come the sages, who dwell in the harmony of heaven and earth and follow the principles of the eight winds, adapting their desires to the world, without a heart of resentment or anger; their conduct does not seek to depart from the ordinary, their dress and bearing follow the common, their movements do not seek to be conspicuous; outwardly they do not weary their bodies with affairs, inwardly they harbor no burdens of thought; they take calm and joy as their task and self-contentment as their achievement, so that their bodies are not worn and their spirits are not scattered."

My present way of life and attitude toward the world closely resemble this passage: neither being unconventional nor drifting with the tide, neither opposing the laws of nature nor getting angry with anyone, nor abusing my own body. Hidden in the vast crowd, outwardly I am an amiable, easy-to-talk-to middle-aged, plain-looking man; inwardly I am an untrammeled country fellow who loves reading, writing, thinking, and farming.

I have people I love and people who love me. In my life these two groups are neither many nor few. I maintain only a core circle of social contact; such company leaves one neither lonely nor exhausted. I have always had people with whom I can joke freely, so that I need not live solemnly every moment.

Deep down I am a humorous, witty person, unlike the serious tone of many of my articles. Even when I was in my twenties writing on Tianya Community, I wrote in a playful, bantering style, lively and humorous, and attracted many readers that way. Articles written when I occasionally flew into a rage over some social injustice and rose to strike the table could carry the thunder in every line. It is just that now I write mostly medical-popular-science articles and can no longer write in that style.

With my family and close friends I am always full of witty remarks and laughter, so they are happy with me. My eldest cousin says I am almost a grandfather yet still play the mischievous child, with a baby face, never growing up.

Now I am at school studying with a group of children even younger than my son; they have nicknamed me the Old Merryman. Blessed by my mother's heredity, I was born with an easy warmth; many around me genuinely enjoy being with me.

I intend to keep this style forever—and in any case I have no choice, for no one has the power to change his true nature. Likewise, the work I now love doing, I also intend to do for the rest of my life.

My personality, interests, and current work fit together by more than 95%, so I am very satisfied with my life path. This gives me enough steadiness to meet external change; no matter how the outside world surges, I respond to change with the unchanging. My heart is as stable as a rock, so I can be at peace with whatever life brings.

I will keep studying medicine and writing; after graduation I may spend more time on basic medical research and medical popularization. My reason is that I believe basic medical research advances medicine, and medical popularization raises the public's awareness of disease prevention; both save people more efficiently than clinical work.

The words I leave behind in this life may be counted in the tens of millions. As for how those words are handled later, I plan to let nature take its course. While I live, I will spare no effort to spread some of my medical ideas through technology. Whether these ideas are correct or not, they need to circulate in the world; academic views only provoke scholarly debate when they circulate, and debate benefits scholarly development.

Over the next few years I may finish one medical specialty (clinical medicine), or perhaps two (clinical medicine and acupuncture-tuina). If I go on to study acupuncture-tuina, I will choose a school where I can come home every day; I can study full-time but do not want to separate myself from family life.

Because attending classes at school has been rewarding. Studying at school is not entirely about what happens in the classroom. At my age, as long as I can leave the chaotic world behind and settle down to study on campus, outside the classroom I can also learn a great deal. This kind of experience truly cannot be explained to outsiders; very few people have it. I myself am very satisfied with the results of this kind of study, and I wish this closed, efficient study time could be longer. If I go on to study acupuncture-tuina, I will sit the college entrance exam again after graduating in clinical medicine. How the future is arranged will depend on my father's health.

Since childhood I have been neither the smartest nor the hardest-working; my greatest strength is simply perseverance. I can invest energy over the long term and focus on one thing—unhurried, neither tense nor slack, moving forward steadily and at a steady pace, as if ten years were one. From what I have observed, not many people can do this.

During the critical period of my growth, my beloved teacher fed me much spiritual nourishment that has benefited me all my life. In my second year of high school I read The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran, and one sentence has stayed with me ever since. Gibran said that the possession of material and wealth beyond basic needs is a sickness. This sentence often echoes in my heart, making me know when to stop in everything, and thereby letting me avoid many life disasters.

At that time I also read Liu Shaohhe's Modern Edition of Zhuangzi. After going through the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Liu, reflecting bitterly on his experience, fused his own life insights into his translation of Zhuangzi; so it is the crystallization of two wise men's wisdom, not merely Zhuangzi's philosophy.

I later reread this book from time to time, and each time I revisit Mr. Liu's Modern Edition of Zhuangzi I gain new insights. Once such a book is combined with one's own experience, it resonates on every page.

My teacher must have provided me with hundreds of similar books. Every few days he would pick some from his collection, bring them to the classroom, and leave them on my desk for me to read as I wished. No reading KPIs, no time limits, no exams, not even a requirement that I must read them; he only hoped in this way to make a student's inner life rich and complete.

This kind of luck cannot be sought; many friends I have met have never even heard the titles of the books I read in high school. My teacher's collection was very rich, able to satisfy all my needs at the time. Add his careful selection and guidance, and my reading became twice as effective. He also loved that the young me loved reading and thinking, and often walked and talked with me on campus. In the dreary exam-oriented education system, to meet such a wonderful teacher—how could I enter a treasure mountain and return empty-handed?

I do not know why my teacher gave me so much high-quality reading, evidently beyond my years. Perhaps in those days his refined tastes found few echoes and he felt lonely; he took me as a kindred spirit and, without noticing, forgot that I was only sixteen or seventeen and that we were teacher and student. Later we truly became lifelong friends.

He poured immense care into me, polishing this student like a great craftsman shaping a fine tool. He not only passed on knowledge but taught me how to be a person. He taught me to "hide one's light and bide one's time, and not show one's edge," lest "the prominent breaks easily." He urged me to "keep the unadorned and hold to the upright, never forget the original heart," to "accumulate deeply before releasing, and become a great instrument late in life." He whetted my rough edges and nourished my soul. Today my emotional stability exceeds that of more than 95% of people, truly thanks to his earnest instruction.

In forty-seven years on earth I have rarely met anyone more learned and inwardly gifted than my teacher. His gentle, pervasive influence nurtured my soul in the best possible way; every life setback I met in middle age I ultimately weathered safely.

The reason is simple: every time I ran into trouble, I could find the answer in the books I read at sixteen or seventeen. My teacher laid down a layer of life's cushion early and fortified my spiritual defenses, so that I could rise from the ashes again and again.

The outlook on life and the world we form in adolescence exert a profound influence on our whole lives. At such a critical growth period, whom we meet and what education we receive make an enormous difference.

My teacher still lives, and that lamp guiding my path still burns there, lighting my way forward. With him around I need no other spiritual guide; he is my refuge.

My older brother also played a great role in my growth. He was not only my role model but a strict master supervising my self-discipline. My parents never managed my studies, but after I entered high school my brother kept a tight rein on me; he helped me kick two time-consuming hobbies, fishing and chess.

He was strict not only then but also extremely demanding about what I wrote. His standards were high and hard to meet. He himself could not meet them, but he wanted me, his younger brother, to. He also loved me; the first money he earned through work-study in college he spent on buying me a few items of clothing, fearing that shabby dress at school would make me feel inferior. That T-shirt he bought me I wore for more than twenty years; though washed pale, it is still treasured in my wardrobe.

My brother and I are an interesting pair. My elder brother is a brilliant theorist and strategist who can always propose far-sighted strategic plans but cannot execute them himself. I have spent my life often playing the executor of his theories and strategies; the various foundations I have built today were originally planned together by my brother and me.

In a sense, my brother and I are like coach and athlete. He is a good coach, and I am a good athlete; coach and athlete bring out the best in each other.

I feel my life has been extremely lucky; most of the time my wishes have come true. At sixteen I fell in love early and, as I wished, married my first love and had a child. To this day we still support each other and get along well, and on every major decision I have her unconditional support.

The spiritual nourishment my teacher gave me back then laid the spiritual foundation for my executing long-range life plans. The love and support of family and friends is the greatest guarantee that I can now persist in the work I love.

These have given me the courage and confidence to ignore worldly opinion. I am willing and able to break a long-range life plan into small pieces and, advancing one soldier per day, complete it over a lifetime; so even this slow bird can fly fairly far.

Forty-seven years of life have also washed the glitter off me, letting me take all success and loss calmly, carry myself neither servile nor arrogant before anyone, and live in this world easily, at my most authentic. I can also move forward on my life's road at an unhurried pace.

I do not set very high expectations for my life. To be light and happy, one's psychological expectations cannot be too high. I set life goals that fit my interests and gifts and are easy to reach, and I break them into small, executable sub-goals completed stage by stage. This way pressure does not easily build up; people under pressure easily give up or procrastinate.

I dislike joining any organization to realize my ideals. As everyone knows, once inside such a system we are set all kinds of KPIs, and an invisible whip seems to drive us forward. In such an environment people involuntarily become eager for quick success. This conflicts with my temperament and would destroy my inner peace and happiness.

So my self-definition has become clearer and clearer. For the rest of my life I will be an independent grassroots doctor, writing a moderate amount of medical popularization in my spare time while doing research in my own direction. In areas where I have no advantage, I will seek collaboration with other researchers, or give up that effort and leave it to later generations.

I will also use the IT skills I learned to spread my views efficiently through the internet. Goals one can reach without begging others are the best life goals, because they guarantee personal independence and spiritual freedom. Many people understand this, but cannot practice it. My execution has always been strong by nature, so I can practice such a life plan relatively easily.

I hope always to face my readers with the utmost candor. I am a latecomer to medicine; I do not want anyone to flatter me with inflated titles, nor do I care about others' criticism and comments. My life took a major turn: before my mother fell ill I was a businessman who had achieved financial freedom through trade; after she fell ill I devoted myself to studying medicine to save her.

I first chose the traditional TCM apprenticeship model. I chose it because it let me, without leaving work, sit the physician-qualification exam and gain a legal license to practice medicine. That balanced supporting my family with personal interest; it was practical for me at the time. But the physician license obtained this way has limited scope and can treat only a narrow range of diseases.

After my child entered university, I had basically fulfilled my life responsibilities. With my family's support, I retook the national college entrance exam to study clinical (Western) medicine.

My goal is to know both Chinese and Western medicine. At my age I will no longer pursue a high degree; a basic credential will do. Once I have the diploma and the entry ticket to Western medicine, I can return home and self-study with excellent teaching videos and AI, which is more efficient.

Later, if time permits, I may also study acupuncture-tuina and qualify as a psychotherapist, comprehensively mastering several major fields of Chinese and Western medicine and working as a general practitioner at the most grassroots level.

To protect personal privacy and to protect my master, my apprenticeship relationship and information about the school I currently attend will not be made public for now, and I decline to answer readers' messages asking for such personal information. If I receive such private messages I will not reply, but I may blacklist readers who pry too much into privacy and who pester me, to avoid further harassment.

Within the circle of close family and friends, of course these have long been no secrets, but my relatives, teachers, and classmates all understand how important protecting my privacy is to me. A near-fifty-year-old studying at school meets no shortage of curious onlookers; it is not easy to keep peace and quiet at school. So they all protect my privacy, and I am grateful for that.

After I graduate I will make public the institution I attend; after my master passes away I will make public my apprenticeship relationship. I have no interest now, and no obligation, to disclose this private information to anyone. I ask readers to understand and respect my personal boundaries.

Every year on my birthday I write such a long essay, and I write each birthday essay seriously. The content may repeat, because each year I face many new readers.

This is a process of self-settling, a good sorting-out of myself that helps me organize my thinking and life plan more clearly.

It is also a process of setting boundaries with readers. When boundaries between people are blurred, unnecessary conflict easily arises. My website is visited by 20,000–30,000 people daily, and my public account has nearly 100,000 followers. As a medical-popularization author with a sizable readership, I need to tell people where my boundaries lie.

I hope readers will respect my individuality and choices, not press me to do things I do not wish to do or answer questions I do not wish to answer. If your curiosity is too strong and you insist, I can only block you.

Because this saves my own energy and time and raises my work efficiency, letting me devote myself more fully to my study, research, and writing. In the second half of life, every second is precious and cannot be wasted.

In the days ahead I still will not open the comment boards on my articles. I have again slightly revised my personal profile; it is also available on my website (www.zhouzhiyuan.com). I have already displayed my medical philosophy through 5.3 million characters of content, and I keep writing every day. If you want to know me, these are enough; there is no need to contact me. As Mr. Qian Zhongshu said, having eaten the egg, one need not meet the hen; a reader's curiosity about an author should know its limits.

I also ask readers to try not to contact me privately to ask all sorts of questions whose answers can be found in my articles. Few people have as large a daily workload as I now carry; I cannot possibly have the energy to respond to every reader as you wish.

If you send me a private message and I do not reply, please understand that I am stretched too thin. Just put yourself in my place: imagine studying, working, and writing every day as I do, and you will understand my predicament.

As for where I will go after graduation, I can tell you clearly: I will most likely be a village doctor in some mountain village in the suburbs of Beijing. I will not go elsewhere.

In addition, I earnestly ask readers not to address me with various flattering titles. Do not call me Professor, Director, or the like; I am not.

In future I am only a rural doctor; my highest medical degree will be a junior-college credential, possibly more than one. Though most doctors could not write what I write, those exaggerated titles still make me very uncomfortable. I like to treat everyone with the most authentic, ordinary attitude, and I hope others will treat me the same.

I like the mountains, rivers, and fields of the suburbs; I like a life where at night I can open the window and see a sky full of stars; I like watching the red sun rise over the mountain in the morning; I like farming a small plot of my own with common fruits and vegetables; I like keeping a few chickens and ducks, and a cat or two and a dog; I like the tadpoles, frogs, swimming fish, and jagged stones in clear mountain streams; I like planting roses and all kinds of greenery along my courtyard wall; I also like, in spare moments, playing the guqin or the electronic wind instrument for my own amusement; I like sitting in the shade of a tree, gazing at the green distant mountains and the boundless white clouds, and thinking deeply without distraction; I like writing down what I think and sharing it with readers all over the world.

I grew up in the country and like its simple, unadorned human relationships. I often go into the mountains of Mentougou on the outskirts of Beijing and have become good friends with some villagers there. We exchange no flattery, need no boasting or fawning, and can chat, relaxed and wide-ranging, with no pressure on either side. Such an environment suits my temperament best. Life ought to be like this; the various false appearances people dress up in with red tape are entirely unnecessary.

In the suburbs I need not be separated from my own child. We settled, bought a home, and have lived in Beijing for years; my family will certainly not leave Beijing. I am satisfied with my family life and love Beijing—its mountains and rivers, its libraries. Away from family for too long, I would have no happiness. So, friends who invite me to make other choices, please drop the idea and respect my personal choice.

I will soon be fifty. At the age of knowing the mandate of heaven, I have already experienced all the hardships I am meant to, and I have grown detached from everything in the world; I no longer want to waste time in all kinds of upheaval. I only want to be with my family, living the life I like, eating vegetables and fruit I grew myself and eggs from the chickens and ducks I raise. At night I will sleep soundly in a place free of noise and light pollution; by day I will treat people as comes, and spend half my time on medical research and writing.

I only want this leisure and ease. Whether the world remembers me or forgets me, I do not care. I have come, I have thought, I have striven, I have been happy, and I will go; as long as I myself am satisfied, that is enough.