Years

Recalling, the most memorable memories are also the most miserable ones, that makes one's heart uneasy, almost every day, every hour, every minute. Perhaps it is because of the fear of losing these memories, I repeatedly create difficulties, like children who are bored and willingly hurt their own fingers. I migrated from Hunan to Hainan, lived in a dilapidated, old military barracks, facing severe power shortages, every night I could only use dim candles, watching the shops and businesses on the street, they all buzzed with small motors smoking, I also faced a water shortage, often as I started to cook, the water pipes would stop flowing, I had to carry buckets and buckets to find water, of course, I also had to use the beach and the river as bathing places. At that time, Haikou was not yet a city, it was more like a large market town and a large fishing village, lacking traffic lights and sewers, everywhere there were green fields and slopes, wild turkeys and rabbits would come into the house, there were also black, swarming ants that suddenly appeared on the walls, turning white walls black, disappearing soon after, restoring white walls intact.

People all hope for a stable and comfortable life, but stability and comfort accelerate time, shorten our lives, it’s a covert plunder. It’s a dilemma. Nietzsche said, ‘If you want to make your life a little longer, put yourself in danger.’ Danger, in the broad sense, including poverty, discrimination, and instability, can fully open our senses, and greatly enhance the ability to absorb information, every movement around us is difficult to miss or escape our attention, and ultimately become memories – we might call it the ‘sensory enhancement effect’. Only by relying on the harvest of feelings, relying on the rich storage in memory, can people prove the existence of life, prove that they are different from those patients in bed who are vegetative.

However, comfort is also eroding our perception, people are always pursuing happiness, it’s making us vegetative.

Comfort is a hypnotist for feelings, a movie that can keep you excited for a few days, a movie that repeats hundreds of times and makes you fall asleep, finally making you a blank person in a comfortable, warm sofa.

These people don’t have life, because they don’t have a life of ‘yearning for days’, they have a life of ‘days like a year’, the same days, no matter how many times, they are just the same day.

Life is awakening, it’s an opportunity to wake up from the long night of the entire universe, everyone has only one such opportunity. I have dozed off several times, time after time almost fell asleep, I must wake myself up, activate myself, always be able to see, hear, smell, taste, touch, just like when I encountered miracles, I checked whether I was dreaming, I must get out of the big sleeping bag at Haikou City, Longquan South Road 99, wash my face, brush my teeth, go out to the dazzling, blinding feeling, I know that traveling is useless, any travel won’t be strange or dangerous, it’s just a magnified review of the beautiful scenery in the TV, social gatherings in bars and tea houses are also useless, any social gatherings won’t be strange or dangerous, it’s just a face-to-face review of the superficial courtesy, I even realized that reading and writing don’t work, these word movements can nourish my brain, but may also waste my senses, let my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin etc. decline function prematurely.

But I found that whether it’s the adventure of a hermit or the adventure of a hedonist, the life I envy is always the life closest to death, investing in it requires both courage of life and courage of death: life and death are so close.

I’m afraid of death, and I’m afraid of life, finally realized that life is no easier than death. I will certainly come up with all sorts of excuses to avoid these lives, avoid new beginnings. Children's responsibilities, parents and spouses’ obligations, and friends’ entrustments and the work in the unit, as well as the necessities of life – all are legitimate excuses for escapists.

I of course didn't say anything wrong. Generation after generation of people said this way, and gratefully and carefully guarded their small happiness, did not want to expose their heads to outside norms and customs, then one by one their responsible families also turned into such vegetative people – it’s a painless farewell.

People seem to only have two choices of death.

Physical death, or the death of sensation – ‘This is a problem.’(Shakespeare's words)