11/9

I don't even know how many times I've resolved to change. Perhaps tonight, it could become a turning point. But as it stands, I am still so fragile, so easily defeated. A person without their own beliefs has no absolute standard of right and wrong in their heart, so they can indulge themselves; that is why they wander in the heart. No matter where you are, fate always holds one end of the rope; you cannot escape, cannot erase it. You are the nail on that board—where the board is, you are. You cannot decide your own length, and you don't know who can set you free.

This is a vacuum of time; I want to make myself burn gloriously, evaporate with abandon, and enjoy the brilliance of a single moment of being human. Yet I cannot, because one second of eruption truly requires a lifetime to accumulate and refine. "It takes a hundred years to cultivate a person"—perhaps that's the truth. But for me as an individual, I really don't know what meaning there is in all this. These true or false reflections make me feel that every second that has happened, or is happening, is so false, so hazy, so overweening.

There is truly no eternity in life. Time itself may be eternal, but relative to space, it's just a moment. Like me—I am everything to myself, eternal, but to society, to others, I am just a moment in someone else's eyes. We are forever the protagonist of our own lives, because only we know how to cherish ourselves, how to hold onto our most beautiful instant.

I've started writing again, and I don't know if this is wise. I want to record some of life's eternities, use words to awaken the filth and ugliness of this world. I want to clean every corner of it. But I, myself, am insignificant; all I can do, all I want to do, is just one point in the river of time. I hope to be remembered, I like lively places, yet I also long for tranquility. What kind of person am I, exactly?

I always thought that only I know myself, only I understand myself, but I know nothing about the present me. I have no choice but to view myself from a third-person perspective, and I find that I am just an ordinary person.

Perhaps, in this world, there are many copies of me; perhaps this world is just a part of my heart. But when I face those hatreds, that indifference in human relations, my heart is still seething with anger, and perhaps some regret. This world is imperfect after all, but as long as we hold beauty in our hearts, what could persuade us to throw ourselves into the dark side?

What I can do is very limited. I don't want to invest my limited life into certain infinite amusements. What I must do is to use this body of mine to its maximum effect. Perhaps this is what it means to be a genius as an individual. We just happened to stand at a certain point, so we bear the weight of that point. And this world is held up by many such points. So self-improvement is not just an attitude, but also a virtue.

Writing this today, watching time slip away, I smiled secretly in my heart. Perhaps I can still be saved. Perhaps, on some future day, I will wake up calmly and realize that life changes little by little. I will always remember one sentence: for the individual, I am my own genius.