What Can Cure Melancholy? Only Keeping Busy!

Shanghai, locked down for two months, finally lifted its controls today, and I am genuinely happy for its residents. Beijing's Haidian and Fengtai districts remain under upgraded controls, and we must continue this summer of "holing up at home." For someone who loves nature like me, being cooped up in the compound for over a month has felt like imprisonment. To make life richer, I chose to keep myself endlessly busy.

My wife had long been annoyed by peeling plaster on our balcony wall and wanted to hire a decorator, but Beijing will not let renovation crews enter compounds, so I took the job on myself. Raised in the countryside, I have done every kind of work; dirt and toil mean nothing to us mud-booted folk. It is only plastering a wall—a small task that cannot defeat me. I have not degenerated into someone who cannot tell the five grains apart or lift a hand.

On the ground floor I enjoy a unique advantage: the backyard is rarely visited, so I have put it to use with flowerpots growing all sorts of vegetables—we have no shortage of seeds and tools. It is now the season when, as the classical text says, "in the third lunar month of summer, heaven and earth qi mingle and all things bloom and bear"; the planted vegetables grow fast, and after a month some are already ready to harvest.

Summer also brings insects. Cabbages are my favorite—and the insects'. After dark, all kinds of unnamed bugs set their sights on my cabbages. I asked my father how to fight them without pesticides, and put on a series of dramas of snatching vegetables from the insects' mouths.

Various methods caught plenty of bugs, but none could change the outcome: my cabbages were eaten to a sorry sight. Alas, my cabbages! But I think the cabbages would not mind the ending—eaten by people is eaten, eaten by bugs is eaten; why should a cabbage play favorites?

Previously, with my wife and son at school by day, I was home alone and could strike the singing bowl several times a day, sitting quietly before the Buddha for a few moments. Now that they are home taking online classes, whenever I strike it they both protest. Helpless, I wait for their morning and evening breaks to strike a few notes and get my little fix.

Outside the window is a grove of ginkgoes, often visited by magpies and sparrows. When Mr. Zhou Youguang reached a hundred years old and could not go out, he watched the birds come and go from his balcony, imagining where they came from, where they went, which places they passed, and what happened there—and found endless joy in it.

My two legs like to run, but this is not a season for running about, so these days I too enjoy watching the magpies and sparrows outside my window. I am not wondering where they come from or go to; rather, I am locked in a battle of wits with one large magpie. He covets the vegetable seeds I sow on the windowsill, and before they sprout he uses his omnivorous beak to dig them up and eat them. Whenever he has visited, the potting soil is turned into chaos and the seeds are often gone.

Whenever I read on the balcony, he watches from the ginkgo; the moment I leave, he flies in to forage for seeds; when I return, he flutters off. Luckily I sow plenty; he eats only a portion and leaves a few to sprout. Truly, all things have spirit; humans are not the only intelligent beings on this planet.

The sparrows help me dispose of some insects; a few flit onto my windowsill to forage among the greens. Sometimes, reading at my desk, I turn my head and see them there, bobbing their heads and chirping, utterly endearing. I smile at them in welcome, though I doubt they understand it.

On this windowsill of less than two square meters, a tiny ecosystem has formed. I am grateful for this miniature pastoral life; it lets me find endless joy even in times like these.

Waking this morning, I sent my son—about to start his senior year of high school—a 100-yuan red envelope, wishing him a happy Children's Day. He called it an insultingly petty red envelope, but, considering the respectable sum, deigned to accept it. From junior high through senior high, three years of his youth have been "frozen" by the epidemic, with nowhere to go. As a father, I want to manufacture a little joy for him.

Last night Taobao ran a 618 promotion, 300 off 50. Knowing full well it was marketing, I joined in and spent seven or eight hundred yuan on T-shirts, mosquito coils, planters, vegetable racks, and summer slippers. The epidemic has hit the economy hard; this year I intend to spend what I can to help the recovery. After all, everyone has a family to feed; if no one consumes, many cannot feed theirs. And in such times, currency depreciation is inevitably faster than usual, so a balance between spending and saving is wise.

The epidemic has hit life hard, and ordinary people's lives have suddenly grown much harder. But the great trend is beyond human control; nature has rules we cannot change, and we all live under them, no exceptions. We can only accept it.

Birth entails death, and full bloom entails decline; decline to the bottom brings renewal. The way of heaven cycles on. As long as our hearts are not too fragile, disaster cannot break us. Even in the hardest times, many simple joys can be found. Live well in good years; in bad years, endure and wait for recovery. We have always done so, growing up.

I increasingly love the life of "the white-haired fisherman on the river is used to watching spring moon and autumn wind," detached from this dusty world of fame and gain, companioned by white clouds on the ridge and a lone boat on the water, spending my remaining years between river and sea. Yet I also feel real affection for this mortal world I live in.

Among the multitude are myself, my wife and child, my parents, my siblings, and millions of others much like us. Everyone needs food to eat, clothes to wear, work to do, and money for medical care when ill. So I sincerely hope our economy recovers and people's livelihood holds.