A Tribute to Bygone Youth

Time slips away quietly as we say "next time," and only then do we suddenly feel lost, helplessly wanting to grab hold of something, yet having to admit that those years and thoughts that brushed past us really did leave—silently, without a trace. Only then do we realize that once we walk out that door, we can never go back. The ancients said, "One never knows where the familiar face has gone, peach blossoms still smile in the spring breeze." That's probably how it is.

Like a snowflake, from the moment it falls from the clouds, it no longer belongs to the sky. Even if it melts into water, the water becomes vapor, and the vapor gathers back into clouds, that cloud, that snow, is no longer the right and wrong of before. The most beautiful memories, the most wonderful past, no matter how desperately we try to relive them, are all in vain—a waste of mind, a waste of time. Life is like Dota, not every character gets a chance to appear. A friend said, if you haven't succeeded yet, you must be on the road to success. Perhaps we are just chess pieces, moved around by others—then our pride, our scheming, have no need to continue. If we really are just chess pieces, whether we are or not, whether we have or lack, what's the difference.

Maybe we really are chess pieces—chess pieces with feelings, at least we ourselves can feel their reality; the rest, what does it matter. In this vast world, who truly cares for whom? As long as we can draw truth from it ourselves, the greatest lie will contain some true love. Why not live a little easier, ignore the surface disturbances, find a quiet place deep within, and dwell there poetically.

Life is always busy, inevitably leaving many stains on it; gradually we can only see the "fate" while the "living" quietly disappears without our noticing. So we become the old ox in the field, only lowering its head to pull the plow, never looking up at the road. Actually we can do better—we just can't treat ourselves as just "me"; other people, other things, all become "me"—what more could I ask for? It's like the law of conservation of mechanical energy in physics: for a system, gains and losses always cancel out. It's the same logic as parents saving everything good for their children. In their eyes, the family is always a whole. Take China and Japan, for example—what reason do they have for a fight to the death? One of you is a finger of the whole Earth, the other is an eye; no matter how large the number, taking the square root a few times will eventually turn it to zero.

The best way to solve a problem is to make that problem no longer be called a problem.

But life has many helplessnesses—maybe that's why physics has the concept of an ideal state. Shallow people can't learn depth or scheming, so they pretend to be noble; smart people think the foolish are unenlightened, so they preen and sneak around. Everyone has their own hierarchy, their own reckoning—after all, people have feelings. And feelings make us self-aware, and make us lost.

I recall a snowfall not long ago; in the face of time, we might be like the snow, drifting with the wind—no matter what arc you trace, in the end you touch the ground. Look at the flowers flying all over the sky, like dancing spirits, like meteors at the edge of the sky, using their brief lives to ignite a flame of hope, telling of life's immortality with a swan song of a life. In the vast sea of snow, how many wandering souls find redemption, how many weary hearts find a home. In the snow, I am left only with devotion and tolerance, with a long-lost touch of emotion; at that moment, I am no longer myself—my heart holds only heaven and earth.

May everyone's life, like the snow, be ordinary yet brilliant, profound yet humble.