What Can a Poor Physician and Man of Letters Offer the World

I am going to Shanghai tomorrow. Today my wife looked for clothes for me to wear on the trip. Searching and searching, she could not find many garments she thought presentable enough to go out and meet people in; the newest clothes were bought three years ago. My shoes are even more shabby; the best pair is an old pair of my brother's. My wife looked rather sad and wanted to buy me new ones, but I refused.

I want to save some money and sooner or later set up a small TCM laboratory, do my own research, improve the efficacy of Chinese medicine, and solve some practical problems. Old clothes, as long as they are washed clean, are not shameful. There are many rich people in the world, but not many who are willing to invest in the cause of relieving human suffering. Yet one day those who are stingy with humanity's common cause of health will need us poor and humble physicians to help them escape the pain of disease. A person's life need not be glamorous and outstanding to be meaningful; making a contribution at one's own ordinary post is also deeply meaningful.

I am indeed poor now, but after my articles are published on various online platforms, they receive over a million reads a month, influencing a huge audience—a number that keeps growing as time passes. Many people curse me because of these articles, but many others have suddenly found the dawn of life through them. Under the guidance of my masters, a considerable proportion of the patients I have treated have had their suffering eased, and even completely shaken off the chronic ailments that tormented them. This is the whole meaning of my existence. This kind of meaning—free of empty talk—makes me live with solidity.

The meaning of my existence does not lie in how much money I have earned for my family. I work hard and support them, and I feel I have done right by them, though I have not brought them more outward respectability. The greater meaning of my existence lies in having helped many people worn out in body and mind, resolved their physical and spiritual suffering, and let them shine with the luster of life once more. That is enough.

When I was young, I too once fantasized about becoming a hero watched by all, and about letting my family live a life of plenty and ease. But in the rush of life I discovered that all of this required me to sacrifice my dignity, soil my conduct, and debase my character in order to obtain it—and that truly went against my nature. I do not want to pretend to be aloof, but I do want to keep an innocent heart, to live a little more lightly in this world, doing the work I love and helping some people I feel for. That is enough.

Poverty is not terrible, and even less is it shameful—though it is hardly something to boast of. What is truly terrible is that, in poverty, one looks down on oneself, wallows in the inferiority that poverty brings, blames heaven and earth, cannot extricate oneself, and cannot devote oneself to the cause one loves. Yan Hui, a disciple of Confucius, was exactly a poor man, yet he studied without weariness all his life and was happy to the point of forgetting sorrow. The disciple Confucius most respected was Yan Hui.

A person who diligently pursues scholarship can hardly make big money like a merchant; in a money-worshipping society, the scholar is fated to be unvalued. Yet in society, scholars are also indispensable; without such a group, the progress of human civilization would be impossible.

We are not noble, nor are we shameful. We keep to this work we love; we need no envious glances from others, no one's applause. In failure after failure, we rise again and continue forward. Perhaps we are merely stepping-stones for those who come after; a thousand years hence, all the research we produce today may be mocked by later generations. But history is like this: without our willingness to be stepping-stones, there would be no brilliance for posterity—just as, without the groundwork of those before us, there would be no achievements of our own.

I do not believe that "the scholar is useless for everything." I hope this absurd logic affects fewer and fewer people. I hope this world has more scholars who can still preserve a touch of refinement in their hearts and sincerely contribute something to the development of human civilization.