Mid-year Review: A Letter to Middle-aged Perpetual Seekers

I like to go into noisy coffee shops, put on noise-canceling headphones, listen to the waiters calling out numbers in the lobby, and the chatter from the tables next to me.

Rather than listening, it's more like watching. And we don't even need glasses—just vaguely scanning the front and sides, feeling table after table of people, some animated, some quietly conversing. The conversations in coffee shops cannot be listened to carefully. Some words are too private; if you're a bystander, they feel excessively intimate and affected, and you don't get the thrill of eavesdropping, but rather feel like sitting on pins and needles, wanting to escape quickly. And those who look a bit older—if there's a table with middle-aged men, they must be spouting some seemingly hard-boiled 'life philosophy,' basking in the attention of the crowd, thinking themselves passionate, talking endlessly without restraint.

I really enjoy when twenty-something guys sit at the next table, with their simple yet "profound" take on society, combing through the state of things "with penetrating insight" on one hand, and fearlessly dreaming on the other. It reminds me of myself at that age. Perhaps everyone is that impetuous in their youth — charging ahead at full speed, never turning back until they hit a wall.

Of course, what I like best is to sit next to the elderly women, especially the Shanghai grannies. They dress with care and put on delicate makeup. Even if I don't listen to what they're saying — and I can hardly understand it anyway — they chat loudly, one sentence after another, as if they could never talk enough, never finish.

So I think of my old great-uncle living alone in the countryside. For a moment I can't quite recall whether he's eighty-four or eighty-five, or perhaps neither.

It seems that in this clamorous little space, I've suspended myself. Like coming home and seeing a childhood toy, I just smile, just fondle the corner I chipped off back then, without a word, just smiling.

I just smiled. I just suddenly remembered that the thing I found most regrettable was losing a 0.9mm mechanical pencil as a child. I couldn't help but fall into my habitual self-analysis — perhaps for the decades to come, I've been constantly compensating in the name of "being different." But after all, a review is not about sweeping up chicken feathers and tying them into a bundle; that balance is hard to strike. Too casual, and it becomes an uncontrolled diary of琐碎; too serious, and it turns into criticism and counter-criticism, a metaphysical "self-justificationism."

So I thought, why not just talk about what comes after middle age.

The widely accepted watershed between young and middle-aged is probably 35. Folk wisdom is full of versions of the 35-year-old work dilemma and job-choice conundrum; even in science, certain stages of brain evolution and trends in bone calcium content seem to align with this magic number.

And I think, speaking in general terms along the dimension of absolute time, is itself a kind of astrology that "relies entirely on coincidence."

When a person has lost his illusions about life, he has already embarked on the road of middle age.

Yes — "fantasy", not "longing", and not "ideal". Only when we fantasize without any scruple, indifferent to the rules of the physical world, and dismissive of the tangled rules and dogmas of reality, do we earn the qualification to "set ourselves free". This heartfelt desire to conquer the uncertain things beyond ourselves, this arrogance that sneers at boundaries — when we are being earnestly lectured on one side, casually agreeing on another, while secretly planning to prove ourselves — these moments are truly nostalgic. This is what being young feels like.

When did you lose that kind of arrogance?

Is it when your child is born, and you hold them in your arms, resolved to take on the responsibility of a whole family? Or when you work with passion, only to be chilled and betrayed over and over by the system and people's hearts? Or when you no longer care about such warmth and cold, only thinking of having a little drink and letting the sea breeze blow on you?

Or is it the moment you happen to think of those you've hurt and start forgiving yourself? Or the moment you say into the void, "I've already forgiven you"?

See, once you start talking about society and the workplace, you can't avoid the clichés — one moment it's moonlit lotus ponds, the next you're at a noisy cocktail party. But I need to nip this budding cynicism in the bud. Because even cynicism is something only young people do. And I am a middle-aged person in the middle of a "review." Ha, middle-aged — like a half-cooked chicken claypot: the broth is still warm, but the bones are still frozen solid with ice chips.

Up until this time last year, I had read many books that should have been read during school—or perhaps didn't need to be read at all. When I was still spending my days selling my time in a nine-to-five job, I felt that this was just that—a sheer waste of life. I had a vague feeling that even during working hours, the time was worth taking seriously. After all, when we try to muddle through, those we resent only lose a little money, but what you're muddling through is your very real life.

Strange to say, a line from Chinese Paladin 4—I think it's near the end of the game, when Yun Tianhe says something on that bridge.

'A true man born between heaven and earth — what is there to fear!'

Strange to say, I would also consider myself a "real man" with nothing to "fear," so I hastily resigned. At that time, it was still the spring of AI—when people talked about models, parameters, and vectors, a group of young men would gather together in lowered voices, nothing like now when everyone just says OpenClaw and must talk about Harness Engineering. Looking back, it really was a scene of "budding." I, too, only after ChatGPT had been doing my work for several months, finally mustered the courage to ask myself one question.

'You say you love facing the sea — is it because you could only face the sea? Or because you've traveled every mountain and river and finally chose to lay yourself down?'

This is why we have the saying "three daily self-examinations"—it's not that we fail to see ourselves clearly, but rather "knowing full well yet pretending to be confused." Your little schemes are clearly visible; if not for being so close that a single leaf blinds the eye, why would you need a third party to nudge you into recognizing yourself as the intermediary?

In the past, I rarely didn't stay up late when running. I felt that the day wasn't complete unless it went past midnight. I especially liked pondering things late at night—things I once thought I liked but now realize I had no choice about. Then I'd light a cigarette, take a long drag, feeling that the thick smoke exhaled in front of me had seeped into my eyes—the deepest sorrow and helplessness in my heart at that moment. Sometimes I'd let out a soft sigh, to let these deep feelings mellow a little more.

Wine is also for drinking. That's why I can sort of understand those who get drunk at every gathering.

Back then we used to play a game: in the middle of a group of people we'd place a large mug; the host and the guest each had a card, and before the mug was full of wine, whoever called "stop" first lost, and had to drink all the wine in the mug; alternatively, once the mug was full and nobody had called stop, we'd compare card values, and whoever had the smaller card drank.

I'm the kind of person who never really looks at the cards, and even if I do, I never say "stop."

If I count, it's been at least eight years since I smoked or drank. And it's been two years since I drank coffee now that I think of it—three more months and that's also a year.

On my Moments feed, the wildest line of my youth was probably: "I'm going to drink every Americano in all of Lanzhou." Back then, Starbucks would default to those heavy large ceramic mugs, and I had to down two Venti cups in a row to feel satisfied. Later, when the Lanzhou Center opened the Northwest's first Reserve store, I remember ordering a hand-brewed "Sumatra," sitting at the bar, and enjoying Starbucks' hidden perk. As long as you chat up the barista and they're not too busy, you can try beans that aren't on the menu, even the barista's private stash.

That day, I got slightly tipsy. A young man performed the full "siphon" routine, and I also remembered a name: "Pressure-Oxygen Rose Valley." At least I thought I remembered it. But in all the years after, I never tasted that day's flavor again.

I'm not talking about mysticism. What I refer to is a real, easy-to-savor coffee flavor.

The entry is quite sour, but not astringent, and at the tip of the tongue it has a sweet aftertaste. Yes, that sweet aftertaste of red wine.

I'm a bit dazed too; I'm not sure if I tasted such a flavor and then remembered it, or if I tasted a flavor and then visualized it.

But at this point, I feel a strong urge to offer a piece of sincere advice to the younger generation. It is not the kind of profound, "been there, done that" worldly wisdom—just a simple thought: "Don't get too close to someone who can quit smoking, quit drinking, and quit coffee at any time."

This is also one of the places where I forgave myself.

Anyone decisive enough to kick a habit is also a cold, unfeeling person. I had only vague threads of an inkling of this, but never the full picture, until the truth hit me after reading The Brothers Karamazov. After finishing the book, I dutifully wrote a review on the 'Get' platform. The main point I made was: reading this book left me feeling nothing. The evil, depravity, and moral decay of those characters felt almost natural to me. The tension crackling through their dialogue struck me as ordinary, run-of-the-mill.

If we were still in the era of QQ Space, I would have ended with a line "nothing saddens more than a dead heart", to put on that contrived depth of adolescent confusion, as if the whole world had only two states: places I've been, and places I'm about to go.

As for now, "I" has changed from a boundary into a "cursor" (or a "scale"). I can no longer tell whether I am on the inside looking out, or an outsider.

Or is it a bit of both, with "measure" being both a method and a goal?