New Year Ramblings

I know I already said something in last night’s chapter, but let me properly wish you all a belated Happy New Year here.

I hope my readers can keep living happily in the new year.

It’s a simple blessing, but I feel like “living happily” is actually one of the hardest things in life.

Some people can live happily just by relying on little joys in everyday life. Some need to sprint toward a grand, fixed goal to feel happy. Neither path is right or wrong—that’s something I only slowly realized after starting grad school. I think the key is whether you yourself understand what it is you’re chasing.

If you want a calm, uneventful life, with goals different from those high-achievers the world idolizes, that’s totally fine—honestly, that’s the normal way of living for countless people. But the problem is: are you truly willing? Are you truly content with the ordinary? Did you actively choose “average,” thinking it’s enough to live leisurely, or is it an “escape choice,” where you let yourself drift because reality forced your hand?

Only you know the answers to these questions, and only you can solve them. That’s probably what “people can only save themselves” really means.

I think everyone’s heard the phrase “unity of knowledge and action,” but what the sages really meant isn’t just “what you know should match what you do,” like most people think.

“Knowledge” is perception, awareness. And “action” has never been separate from “knowledge.” From beginning to end, they’re one. When you smell a flower, that’s “knowledge.” The impulse and tendency to move closer to that flower, that’s “action.” It’s not the worldly version where “action” equals “practice.”

Then what about “practice”? “Practice” is actually the most natural thing. Once a thought rises in your heart and you feel it’s something you should do, then you just carry it out. It should be as natural as water flowing downhill.

So this saying “easy to know, hard to act” is basically a fake problem. If you don’t act, then you simply don’t know. Why bother making excuses for yourself?

“I know I should do this, I know it’s good for me, but I’m too lazy so I give up.” Is that “easy to know, hard to act”?

No. Why leave yourself that fig leaf? That’s “not knowing,” and it’s also “not acting.”

That’s why Master Shou-ren believed everyone can unify knowledge and action. It’s just that our “knowledge” is buried under our desires and emotions. So in essence, everyone is a sage.

Back to the main theme that’s been running through this book from the start: “People can only save themselves.”

Let’s throw out another question: “Can people be saved?” Or, less chuuni and more calm: “Can people be changed?”

The answer is obvious: yes. Even the sages thought so.

I used the word “be,” as in “be changed,” but like I said, “people can only save themselves.” When you change yourself, isn’t that also “being changed”? Being changed by another version of you. And besides, if you never even try to change yourself, how are others supposed to open a door for you, help you change yourself?

So you’ll notice: Ye Weibai doesn’t just jump in and crudely meddle with people. He wants to be a lighthouse at sea, shining through the fog. But the one actually moving forward is still the ship itself.

Those of you who’ve been following since the book started—until now, two years later—probably know: I started writing this when I graduated undergrad. Then I got through the grad school entrance exam, now I’m a grad student, and in a few years I’ll graduate again. If nothing unexpected happens, I’ll probably keep going for a PhD.

I don’t know how old you all are. What stage of life you’re in. Do you have a path you want to take, dreams you want to realize?

I don’t mean to preach. In the end, I’m just a novelist. I just want to share.

Loving to create and share—that’s a novelist’s passive skill.

Writing novels, to me, is a hobby.

What makes me really happy is: as long as I’m alive, this hobby keeps leveling up. Life experience, reading books—those all raise my “writing” skill.

I do read your short comments and long ones. So I really do recognize a lot of you who’ve been here since very early on. It’s something that genuinely moves me.

My attitude toward this book is simple. I never planned to make money off it. It’s just a hobby.

Back then I did think about how much I could earn per month from it, but once I started grad school, I realized if I want to make money, there are a lot of easier and safer ways. And one way or another, you have to admit: once a hobby becomes a job, you’re forced to change your original intent and sacrifice a lot.

For me to write, if I haven’t gone through a long stretch of life, read a lot of books, and suddenly feel a “I have to write” urge from the heart, it’s really hard to start typing. Even if I force myself to, whatever comes out feels like chewing wax.

So like I said before, this book was originally going to go VIP. But I never managed to build up that 30k-word stockpile, and the whole thing just fizzled out—the SF editor even called to ask about it back then.

Do I regret it? Not really. I know I can’t write on that “webnovel grind” schedule, so there’s nothing to feel sorry about. Isn’t this pretty nice as it is? Besides, honestly—anyone who can enjoy this book of mine must have a pretty quirky taste. (laughs)

All right, my brain’s overheating and I’m rambling nonsense, so I’ll stop here for this little New Year chat.

There should still be a proper chapter today—assuming nothing unexpected happens. *runs*

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