Zhou Er Gou, Slow Your Steps and Walk Out More Joy

Every upheaval and accident that befalls us in life is a help to the growth of our mind—provisions that make us wiser.

——Epigraph

I do not know when, or why, I gave myself the nickname “Zhou Er Gou” (Zhou Number Two Dog). There is a longer version of this nickname: “Saint John Stephenson Nicholas Maimaiti Zhou Er Gou.” The inspiration for the extended version comes from the joke everyone tells every Spring Festival: no matter how smartly you dress while working away from home, or how Western-sounding the name you use at work, once you return to the village for the New Year you immediately revert to a childhood nickname like Yadan or Gousheng, dressed in a countrified cotton jacket, and quite happy about it.

I was born in the countryside and grew up used to all sorts of nicknames like “kitty” and “puppy.” We Chinese have a custom: we believe the more humble a child's name, the less the King of Hell will covet the child, and the easier the child is to raise. On top of this there are accompanying ideas such as “the three great treasures of life are an ugly wife, poor land, and a tattered jacket.” In short, the whole point is low desire and low psychological expectations.

I recently saw an interview in which the stock-market genius Buffett, speaking of the secret to a happy marriage, said that in his view the key to marital happiness is that both spouses have low psychological expectations of each other from the very beginning. This chimes with traditional Chinese thought. Two people with lowered expectations can weather all the disappointments that arise together; such a marriage is more stable and lasts longer.

Life cannot, after all, avoid upheavals and accidents, and each time one occurs our emotions inevitably fluctuate. If the fluctuation is too violent, and the time needed to return to baseline after the fluctuation is too long, it will inevitably affect our quality of life. But if we have very low psychological expectations of life, then when upheavals and accidents occur, our capacity to endure will be strong. When we fear no loss, loss cannot deliver a crushing blow.

Last year I went through many things that were hard to accept: a string of partings and deaths occurred in my life, and after overwork my body and mind were both severely overdrawn; for a time these led me into a depressive state. But I held on, and relying on inner strength and on the enthusiasm for life I had cultivated over many years, I walked out of that state.

Once out, I found that many things had not been such big deals after all. Loss and death are unavoidable natural laws; what a person ultimately needs most is to make peace with his own heart, to rely mainly on himself for companionship, with others merely adding icing on the cake. I no longer have excessive expectations of the outside world and have learned to let things follow their course. There is no need to walk the road of life so hurriedly; all the problems that cannot be solved now can be dealt with by the method of “let's slow down and talk about it later.” As time passes, things either get resolved, or whether they are resolved no longer matters.

If something cannot be solved now, then slow down and talk about it later. This shift in attitude completely killed off the residual anxiety and depression in my heart. I felt as if reborn from fire; this year I have entered a state of life more relaxed and at ease than ever before last year.

I bought the electronic wind instrument I had long wanted, and together with an empty-wooden drum a friend gave me and a guqin I had bought earlier, I began learning various instruments. Learning instruments is quite freewheeling: I play when I feel like it and put it down when I don't. Since it is just for fun, I don't have to practice every day. I learn instruments entirely on my own: when I cannot read sheet music or numbered musical notation, I look it up on Baidu, and after a bit I understand; when I cannot work the instrument, I find a video on Bilibili. Without spending a cent on tuition, I can still get a sound out of the instrument. Though often out of tune, broadly speaking it sounds like something; the longer I go on, the better I play—and that is enough.

Without music, life would lose much of its joy; learning an instrument, life loses much of its worry. For ordinary people learning music as a hobby, there is no need to pursue mastery, nor to buy expensive high-end instruments; an instrument costing a few dozen or a hundred or two yuan is already enough. Little money spent, much happiness gained.

I am still growing flowers and vegetables. Last year, at my lowest ebb, every plant I kept died without exception, because in that period I had no heart for tending them. This year I again picked up some cheap plants from the market, adding a few each month, and have set up an indoor botanical garden all over again. I am still growing vegetables, though the rented plot is half of last year's, and the financial pressure is correspondingly smaller.

Many people probably assume that I, now preparing for exams and studying full-time, am in a state of high tension. In fact my life is far more colorful than before. The number of things I “don't care” about grows, and the pressure on me grows correspondingly smaller. In the past I thought about living a “subtraction life,” but it was hard actually to subtract. Yet after a series of upheavals, this subtraction was imperceptibly completed.

Last year I was in a car accident that left a large scar on my face; I don't mind. The aftermath of the accident is not actually fully settled; on the accident determination report, both I and the other party bore responsibility. The lawsuit over the accident compensation, neither early nor late, is set for court right on the eve of my college entrance exam. Although my plans have been disrupted once again, I don't take it to heart. If I cannot sit the exam this year or cannot pass, there is always next year; nothing is worth my sorrow.

This car accident has been of great value to me. Having come through the hardest period, my psychological resilience is far stronger than before. So psychologically I have already accepted the worst outcome of this lawsuit; after the court hearing, no result can be worse than the worst I have imagined, and the worst outcome is that I bear the other party's repair costs.

Not dying in the car accident is a great blessing. Cheating death was the best gift heaven gave me, and I handle all the remaining affairs of the accident with a grateful heart. I thank heaven for leaving me this life and for giving me a chance to grow; I will not haggle over the trivial matters that came along with the accident. Suffering can teach us to see through greed, delusion, anger, pride, and doubt, and to enter a clearer realm. With no desires and no demands, life cannot break us.

My child has also grown up a great deal and become more sensible than before. After my accident, he rushed to the scene at once to care for me. He now understands how hard it is for his parents and can plan his own life more rationally. After lowering his expectations of the future, his mindset is still as positive and optimistic as ever; he is easily contented and does not waste money, which puts my mind greatly at ease and removes financial pressure as well.

For the rest of my life I can accept everything going to zero. A person who has survived disaster fears no loss, and the heart of one who fears no loss is strong. How does one transcend the mortal world? As long as one transcends the various attachments of the mortal world, even while still living in it, one will no longer be burdened by it; I personally call that having transcended the mortal world.

The years make a person's temperament ever gentler, a sign that the brain is maturing. I still love learning, read every day, and often practice the instruments I enjoy. Anti-aging should begin in middle age; middle-aged people must exercise their brains to slow brain aging and lower the risk of Alzheimer's in old age. If, when old, one can still have sharp ears and eyes, an agile mind, good memory, and self-care ability, the quality of old age will be far better and much unnecessary burden on the children will be reduced.

I also keep doing push-ups, working with dumbbells, using the horizontal and parallel bars, and stretching my legs; this slows the aging of my cardiovascular and peripheral vessels, avoids heart disease, stroke, and limb arterial embolism, and helps keep the brain from aging. Having studied medicine for so many years, I feel the best medicine is preventive medicine. TCM says the highest physician treats the disease before it arises; by preventing the foreseeable common diseases of old age, the probability of a good death rises. More blessings are not as good as fewer disasters, and more wealth is not as good as freedom from illness. Whether for ourselves or for our children, we have a responsibility to take care of our health.

Keep walking on, Zhou Er Gou, but please slow your steps a little more, walk on calmly and at ease, and walk out more joy along the way.