Unnoticed, I Have Grown a Little More

Loving monotony makes it easier for me to be happy

Who ever really likes loneliness? One simply dislikes disappointment more.

—Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

I no longer remember which anthropology monograph I read that told me the people of the Pacific island of Samoa like to amuse children enormously, and then, at the child's peak of excitement, disappoint them utterly; as a result, the people of that island grow up with a very high happiness index.

My own happiness index is also high now, because the disappointments I have been through are beyond words.

If something cannot be obtained, stop seeking it. Having lived through so many disappointments, life has become simple.

Now I greatly enjoy solitude; even the simplest socializing feels like a bother.

Best that I ask nothing of others and others ask nothing of me. Neither side bound by anything; you are free, and I am carefree.

I love to lose myself in mountains and stones, in flowers and grasses, in the seven-stringed qin, in all kinds of books.

So I live almost every day in the park and in my own study.

This life of not having to deal much with people is simply wonderful.

Pursuing only the easiest happiness to satisfy

Once, a single yuan could bring me great happiness.

When I first started college there was a time I was too poor to eat my fill; then one yuan could buy several steamed buns or baked cakes, enough to fill me, and after eating I felt life was simply marvelous.

Later it took ten yuan to give me that pleasure. In my early twenties I lived in a single-story room in the Wutaishi community opposite the National Library; a watermelon or Hami melon from a roadside stall cost ten yuan. Buying one now and then, I ate it with gusto.

Later still, for a while, even a hundred thousand or a million yuan could not give me the thrill it once did, because my desires kept swelling in this city.

I wanted a big house, an expensive car; a hundred thousand or a million yuan was nothing in this city.

Now, I feel great without spending money.

I often go to the trash pile to pick up flowerpots people have thrown away, dig up some soil at night from outside the compound, and get some flowers and grasses to grow in my study. Such things can make me happy for days.

When those flowers and grasses grow, I can be happy for months, even years.

Or I wander through Zizhuyuan Park, find a bench, cross my legs, listen to the folk musicians in the park play, bask in the sun, my mind empty of all cares, drowsy—at such moments I feel the happiest person on earth is none other than me.

From twenty to forty my life basically revolved around the National Library; from forty to death, perhaps it will still revolve around it.

Whether renting or buying, I chose to live near the National Library.

Though I have lived in the capital for twenty years, apart from the area around the National Library I have rarely set foot in other parts of the city. Occasionally I hike Xiangshan or travel to the outskirts.

I never tire of this monotonous life. Occasionally, worn out by work and distracted, I need only spend a day or two spacing out in Zizhuyuan Park, separated from the National Library by a single wall, to recover.

Happiness is in fact extremely simple. As long as the heart has not so many expectations, a single flower or grass, a single tree, even blue sky and white clouds, can bring heartfelt joy.

At least for me, it is so.

Recognizing my limited ability makes me lighter

Once in high school, my beloved teacher left a line of comment under one of my essays: "Do not try to be a savior."

My teacher liked leaving all kinds of comments under my essays, each one pinpointing my problems just right.

Now I gradually realize that perhaps, then himself nearing forty, he was in a special way expressing his own feelings about life, which by chance resonated with me more than twenty years later.

Humbled as a physician, my duty is to rescue the dying and heal the wounded. Every patient's condition tugs at my heart; I long to save them all. But practice has mercilessly slapped my face: although I have indeed saved many, even more are beyond me.

I study tirelessly and strive to improve my skill, hoping to save more patients, only to find that things go against my wishes; however hard I try, those I cannot save remain the majority.

Now I know that not only I, but medical people the world over, are in this same awkward spot.

We are humans of limited ability, not the saviors of myth.

Do not let compassion shatter your confidence, and do not chase perfection too hard, or you will never finish this medical road.

For it is a road where failure far outnumbers success.

If I did not want to collapse, did not want to become a depressive, I had to accept the reality of my own limited ability.

Because of this, I know better now how to say no; when my ability and energy run short, I simply refuse.

Following no spiritual guru, and being no guru to others

The very phrase "educating the soul" sounds wrong to me no matter how I hear it.

My soul needs no one to educate it, and I have no standing to educate anyone else's.

Every person's soul should be managed by itself.

Only someone full of a sense of superiority thinks others are beneath him and need his education.

I do not think others are so awesome, nor myself; all the great figures of history, to me, are not awesome either.

We are all flesh come to this world for a brief visit. Any person who lives in bodily and mental joy has no need of others' pointing fingers. Quite the reverse: many gurus who love to point fingers may not themselves be truly happy.

No spiritual guru in this world can capture me, for I am a wild horse who refuses to be tamed for a lifetime, willing only to gallop across the grassland, nibbling here and there. After absorbing the nourishment I need, I also pass out what my gut cannot digest.

Now I do not much like writing articles, and I especially dislike writing opinion pieces.

Those who can rattle on a bit of nonsense and, drunk on themselves, think they are superior to others—those are deluded souls.

A free and self-aware soul goes its own way and does not interfere with others' freedom.

So much of what I once wrote now seems to me no better than farting.

At around thirty I burned manuscripts I had written in my twenties, by the least estimate several million words.

If it were not so hard to fully erase articles on the internet, I would probably have deleted a large portion of what I once wrote.

One day, every word we once said with such conviction will seem to us like so much nothing.

So, dear readers, do not think of me, and I will not think of you; forgetting one another in the rivers and lakes is the best choice.

Seek me out for treatment, and I will consider as I can; seek me out for heart-to-heart talks, and I would rather you did not. This heart of mine is already empty, and I will not store much more in it.

Do not bother me, and I will not bother you.

Adapting to everything, life has no fixed frame

Before, I always thought: if one day I could retire to the countryside, plant a grove of bamboo, raise chickens, ducks, pigs and dogs, that would surely be bliss.

There was also a spell when I was crazily set on buying a villa in a big city, enjoying the convenience of the metropolis while living in a spacious house.

I had many ideas. I tried each one, and found them all much of a muchness.

Now I have adapted to any state of life; if suddenly I move from one way of living to another, I adapt quickly.

There is no best state of life, only the best ability to adapt.

Without adaptability, even if every ideal condition is met, one still finds the dreamed-of life is no great thing.

I no longer set an ideal model for my life.

The present life is the ideal one; enjoy this moment's sun and rain, this moment's every blade of grass. To die the next moment would leave me no regrets.

When my son was small, I left him in the care of an acquaintance; later he came to call her Grandma. This nanny-and-grandma adored him and always bought him all sorts of treats, insisting he taste every delicacy.

Grandma's idea was: once you have tasted everything good, no one will ever be able to bribe you away with a single candy.

As he grows day by day, I let him experience all kinds of life—the life of the wealthy, the life of the poor; let him sample every way of living, so that afterward no one can tempt him, and no life can frighten him.

I only hope that, like me, he will early develop an extraordinary ability to adapt—able to adapt to anything, never fawning nor arrogant. Whether living in a grand hall today or under a bridge tomorrow, he will feel no disorientation.

Survival of the fittest is the law of nature. Life is full of change; to survive, one must adapt.

To enjoy life within life—beyond that, I ask nothing.

Laying down my traveling pack: I am a dweller, not a passerby

Some people spend their whole lives on the road; others prefer to stay home.

I belong to the latter.

I do not care whether my home is a hovel or a skyscraper, nor whether it lies deep in the mountains or in the city center. Any place is the same to me, as long as I can live there in the way I like; that can be my home.

I am tired of living as a passerby, and have no appetite for chasing novelties around the world. I only like to live within walking distance of my own home, taking easy paces; I do not mind coarse tea and plain rice, and have grown used to thrift.

In the vast sea of people I am like a speck of dust, so ordinary that no one knows I exist. But in my own home I am an indispensable part. At home I can live in my truest, most relaxed state.

I may not travel on business again. Staying in my own home, treating some patients as fate allows—that is enough. To hurry through an unfamiliar place, anxious and worried, just to earn a small consultation fee, does not feel good. Some diseases, once they reach a certain stage, are best abandoned rather than summoning a doctor to come treat them.

A warm home needs not material support most of all, but love and affection.

What a person needs most is not capital to show off, but the love and care of family.

Life is short; I will be no more a pointless passerby. Returning home, one can still live a meaningful life.