Where the Heart Is at Peace, There the Body Is at Peace

It must have been because of the heat. This Monday, during the second class, a girl in our class suddenly took ill: she had difficulty breathing, her hands and feet convulsed, she could not move, and her limbs turned ice-cold. The teacher noticed, stopped the lecture, and later we took her to the hospital.

On Tuesday, the weather forecast put the local temperature at 37 degrees, but it felt like around 39; some classmates' phones showed the temperature inside the classroom as high as 40 degrees. In such heat, people were drowsy and listless.

Our classroom has no air conditioning; it was more like a steamer, and even the air blowing from the fans was hot. During Tuesday's third and fourth periods, the teachers who were teaching could barely stand the heat.On Tuesday afternoon and evening, classes were suspended school-wide to escape the heat.

Approaching fifty, I ordinarily need not endure such hardship in an environment like this. But I have no regrets about this journey, and especially lately, having here begun some of the basic medical research I had long dreamed of, I feel all the more that this life choice of mine has been profoundly meaningful.

Once a student in my class brought some funny videos of middle-aged people and said to me, "Uncle, you should be living this kind of life—why bother coming here to grind it out with us?"

Youth does not know the bitterness of the world, and asks with a smile what the old uncle seeks.

As a child I very much hoped to grow up to be a scientist and engage in research. When I took psychological tests, the results also showed that the occupation best suited to me was that of a research fellow.

But for those of us born in rural China in the 1970s, many had to set aside our dreams in youth and struggle for survival because of the fortunes of our country and families. Our nation was truly too poor back then to support a large body of people doing research. Our own families were also far too poor; even putting food on the table was a problem.

And scientific research is the most funding-hungry of pursuits: a single animal experiment costs anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and there is no guarantee of success—years of experiments may come to nothing.

Today the nation is far stronger than before, and the living standards of our people are much higher. Many families can no longer provide financial support for their children's ambitions as they once could not. The conditions for young people who want to do research are far better now.

Last weekend, while playing chess at home with my son, he told me he wants to finish a doctorate in mathematics and then another in physics, and later do research in depth in mathematics and physics; he hoped I would support him. Of course I agreed, so long as he can bear the hardship. At the same time I envy him that at his age he can do what he wants to do.

My generation is gradually entering middle and old age. Over these years, as I have grown older, I feel my thinking ability has indeed declined. Last year, reviewing at home to take the national college entrance exam, I spent a whole day stuck on one math problem. In the evening when my son came home, I asked him how to solve it; in less than half a minute he drew an auxiliary line and solved it effortlessly. In that moment I realized I was no longer the man I once was.

My older brother teaches mathematics; during this past Spring Festival he also discussed math with my son. There was a problem he had thought over for several days without figuring out; my son, after looking at it, helped his uncle solve it in less than a minute. This left the two of us brothers deeply sighing: time slips away, youth is gone, and our most creative era has truly passed.

When we were young, our minds were sharp. My older brother was even a provincial top scorer on the gaokao; though I was not as good as he, the gap was not large. Our strongest subject at the time was mathematics; my brother still teaches math, yet he no longer has the quick reflexes my son has. My son is hardly the most outstanding among his peers. Comparing like this, I have to admit my thinking ability is not what it used to be. But middle-aged people have middle-aged people's advantages; having been tempered by life's storms, our patience and perseverance are far greater than in youth.

I still hope to produce something of value in my remaining years. Now that I have the chance to learn research alongside a group of university teachers on a college campus, I am well satisfied. For me, this is the state I like most and in which I feel most at ease. If I am fortunate enough to develop some truly effective medicines that benefit many patients, then before I draw my last breath I will have no regrets.

Leaving a comfortable home to live in a dingy student dormitory; leaving the air-conditioned National Library to sit in a 39-degree classroom dripping with sweat or work in the lab; making the tiring weekly commute between school and home; enduring five nights a week of the noise of a group of thoughtless young college students addicted to games; patiently sitting through irrelevant filler courses—none of this matters. As long as I can keep moving forward in the direction of my ideal, I am content.

Mr. Ji Xianlin wrote an essay titled "At the Time It Seemed Nothing Out of the Ordinary." In it he wrote: "The so-called 'at the time' refers to a certain past stage of life. While in that stage, going through the days felt ordinary, quite commonplace. Ten or twenty years, or longer, later, looking back, one finds that there was in fact something extraordinary about it."

These words fit my present situation perfectly. At this moment, everything I am going through indeed seems to amount to little. But decades from now, when I look back on this period of my life, I will surely cherish it, and I will surely thank myself for having made such a bold decision in middle age, steering the course of my life to its most ideal state.

Zeng Guofan once wrote a poem to encourage his younger brother Zeng Guoquan: "A thousand autumns stretch vast; alone I remain. After a hundred battles, I return once more to my books." Su Shi wrote in a ci poem: "Returning from ten thousand miles, my face seems younger still; smiling, the smile still carries the fragrance of ridge-plum blossoms." Such a state of mind cannot be deeply understood without first living through the world and then returning to be remolded.

Just as the angler's pleasure is not in the moment of eating the fish, so the striver's joy has never lain in the moment of success, but in the process of striving itself.

When overcoming all manner of difficulties and advancing toward the ideal in one's heart, a person's whole spiritual state is at its best. Life is short, fleeting as a white horse glimpsed through a crack; everyone experiences life differently. The way I love to experience it is to be immersed in intense devotion. I love a life driven by inner passion, pressing forward fearlessly with nothing to hold back.

Such a life, unaware that old age is drawing near—what could be more joyful?