The Grandmaster

Now what we can do is find a quiet place and quietly contemplate, understand how to prevent precious things and important people from being lost again, understand how to avoid making the same mistakes. Learn from the experience, draw strength from it, and continue to move forward with determination, find things we love, encounter true love, and do the right thing. - Xi Murong

In the past two weeks, I woke up at 6 am every day and had no problem working 16 hours a day until 11 pm. But now the side effects are showing. These past few days, without overtime work, I’m alone in my room without internet, and I deeply experienced the terror of loneliness. I became inexplicably irritable and unfortunately, my phone can access the internet, so I bothered people. The most common phrase from “Men’s Gang” was “I’m so bored”. I apologize to those who’ve been troubled by me. As for when I can stabilize, I am also uncertain.

007 and The Grandmaster

During college, every now and then, I would gather a group to go to the cinema to watch blockbuster movies. At that time, I didn’t have much money, so I would only go when it was an international blockbuster in 3D. But after starting work, I neglected these forms of entertainment.

A few nights ago, I went to watch [James] Bond. It was quite tragic.

After watching, I also remembered a comment on a [download] page for “Assassin’s Creed” on VeryCD:

After playing for a while, there is a sense of desolation. Although the city is more bustling and the characters are more glamorous, facing the Ezio in his fifties is a kind of desolation. The years don’t spare anyone, from when he was a young and vigorous kid in the second game to now, an old man with white beard climbing walls. There are many thoughts. Coincidentally, it was my birthday recently, and I felt that each year passes by faster. It’s as if this game, by the time I look at myself again, I’ll already be old. One’s entire life is vividly portrayed in this trilogy of assassins.

“The Grandmaster” has many touching moments, but I won’t go into detail about each one. The most touching point for me was when Ip Man tried to grab Gong Yutian’s cookie but couldn’t get a hold of it. The accountant commented that the Tai Chi master Yang Luchan has a special technique called “The Bird Doesn’t Fly”. When a bird rests on Yang Luchan’s hand, it can’t fly away because Yang Luchan has a way of discharging force so the bird has nowhere to exert its strength, and it thus becomes trapped in an invisible cage.

I specifically looked up this story and found it here:

“The little sparrow was originally lively and energetic, but when it was on the hand of the martial arts master Yang Luchan, it was like having a leg disease. Despite flapping its wings constantly, it felt like it was being held by a magnetic force and couldn’t fly. It turns out that for a bird to fly, both feet must push off at the balancing point to make use of the rebounding force to flap its wings and soar. Yang Luchan’s kung fu has already reached a masterful level, sensitive enough to feel the instant the sparrow pushes off with its legs. Every time the sparrow tried to fly, he would make his hand sink, making the bird’s leg force vanish! As a result, the little sparrow could only struggle by flapping its wings, unable to leave Yang Luchan’s palm.”

This story may be exaggerated, but regardless of its authenticity, it inspired my interest in continuing Tai Chi.

Usually in the park, the middle-aged and elderly people practice the standard 24 form, which evolved from the Yang style and is actually Tai Chi exercise. There is a sensitive history behind this, so I won’t go into it, you can google it yourselves. When I first saw this, I thought it was slow and feeble, and lost interest. But later I discovered that the Yang style was actually derived from the Chen style and that the Chen style is powerful and suitable for young people, which matches my weak physical condition.

But from the initial fast pace to the present slow pace, I’ve come to understand how powerful and hidden the Yang style’s “a combination of hardness and softness, deeply concealed” is. In my understanding, Yang masters have already externalized and contained their coiling energy, making it invisible on the outside. The energy revolves and turns inside, and when you engage with their hands, you’re finished…

In the past, I was narrow-minded.

“I spent 18 years to sit down and have coffee with you”

Every time I see Xue Yuan, she counts how much money I’ve made, how much I’ve saved, and each time the calculation is outrageous, making me think that I have already achieved my dream several years in advance.

This also leaves me speechless. It’s only a little bit more money, so what’s the point? Life is a mess, and I am on the edge of pessimism and anxiety. Actually, what I want to say is, why did I suddenly have a little more? How much did it cost to acquire this bit? Up until now, a deeply memorable article for me is “I Spent 18 Years to Sit Down and Have Coffee with You.”

I went to a university that is considered weak, China Other University. During the campus recruitment stage, I faced students from two other universities for the first time and felt helpless.

J.K. Rowling’s speech at the graduation ceremony at Harvard University titled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination” had a line:

Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

So, I have always envied those students from prestigious universities, envied their starting point, which is already so high. How much more effort do I need to put in to catch up with them, and even then, it’s only a possibility.

Each stage has its own troubles. I don’t know if I’m exaggerating it, but because of this, I am in agony. Because of this, I deeply understand the enormous gap, and I feel helpless in the face of my own weakness. Every matter, every direction, requires time to accomplish.

I don’t want to be like what was expressed in a Weibo post:

Didn’t have time to figure out what I wanted, and my temples have already started turning white; didn’t have time to confirm my love, and the other person has already gotten married; didn’t have time to love my child properly, and they’ve grown up and left; didn’t have time to achieve success and fame, and we’re already heading to the grave. We fear that everything will be too late.

Unfortunately, the second one has already come true.

Becoming the kind of person I hated when I was young
When a person chooses to grow, they often choose to not be understood because you have to take the path you’ve chosen, not the path they think you should choose. I don’t know if my parents already don’t understand what I’m thinking. In fact, I don’t even know what I’m thinking, let alone others. Moreover, recently, I realized that I am becoming the kind of person I dislike. I’m always cautious and dare not expose my true self. It’s as one saying goes:

Many people’s sense of loss comes from violating the aspirations of their youth. Thinking that they have matured, become sophisticated, become shrewd, they realize how naive they were in the past and finally see through things and want to surpass them. As a result, we become the kind of person we most detested when we were young.

Unhappy matters
No one cares about me when I’m sad. When I see English all over the screen, I get dizzy. The number of books I want to read is overflowing.

I know the theory:
Take it slow, everything will come in due time.
Strengthen what’s weak.
One thing at a time.
Focus on the present.
The most difficult thing is assigning tasks.

It seems like I’m on a path of self-redemption, but I’m so weak that at times, I feel beyond help.

It’s been half a year since graduation
Half a year has passed
Even the end of the world has passed

Objectively speaking, it seems like there has been progress
But if you plot the curve, it approaches the horizontal line infinitely.

The Way in the Morning

There’s one thing that is really bothering me.

In Liu Cixin’s science fiction, there’s a story called “The Way in the Morning”,
taken from Confucius’s “Analects. Of [Zi] Liren” (才子里仁),
which vividly describes how scientists willingly sacrifice their lives to understand the secrets of the universe.

Although learning about the Way has precedence, it’s not a big deal.

But in the “Tao Te Ching,” there’s a line:

The superior person who knows the Way is diligent in putting it into practice; the ordinary person who knows the Way is indecisive, appearing to have it, appearing to not have it, while the inferior person who knows the Way bursts out laughing. If they don’t laugh, then it’s not enough to be called the Way.

If they don’t laugh, then it’s not enough to be called the Way.
An obvious feeling is that in my second year of college, in the library, I came across the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” and after flipping through it and reaching the part about coinage, I found it uninteresting and thought to myself that I would never go down the path of starting my own business in this lifetime. Instead, I would turn to my career in programming, narrowing my goals, and not waste time reading this book.

Now, it seems laughable how stupid and naive I was back then. It can be said that the Way is right in front of my eyes, but I ignored it.

The Superego, Ego, and Id

Each person has three states within them: the parent, the adult, and the child. They correspond to Freud’s theory of personality structure: the superego, the ego, and the id. The superego represents the law, morality, conscience, and authority. It is the maintainer of order, a strict prosecutor, a god, a deity, an enlightened master who abides by the principle of goodness. The id follows the pleasure principle, it encompasses all primitive impulses, instincts, desires. It is capricious, self-centered, and the self. The ego follows the reality principle, it is the coordinator, the balancer. It is in the middle, satisfying the desires of the id while avoiding the gaze of the prosecutor, not completely violating the will of the superego. The ego is like a businessman, capable of bargaining. The id and superego are at opposite ends of the seesaw, with the ego in the middle, balancing. The ego is rational, following the principle of reality.

Why am I feeling so sad? Everything, I think, may be due to the power of the superego.

There has always been a shadow in my heart, that is the me that has already achieved mastery in all areas that I know of: programming, tai chi, meridians, psychology, mind, and the most recent one, finance, which I have mastered to the extreme. I have never had a conversation directly with him, only a shadow has always been there. Just like what was said in “God, Study Genius, Person”: “Gods generally don’t give attention to us.” But I have always tried to carefully control my desires and chase after that shadow.

There are many trivial matters in normal times, and I don’t have time to listen to my inner voice. And most of the time, I am still satisfied with my choices. But when I am alone at home, shutting the doors and windows, surrounded by silence, and I calm down and am alone with myself, I face the god-like opponent of the superego and the pig-like ally of the id.

I realized that I am so fragile, even cowardly, and I cry. No pain, no gain, but sometimes I wonder if the price is too high. What’s the point of blindly pursuing? It would be better to live a stable life, why not be happy?

The gap is worlds apart, how do I balance it? I think all the sense of powerlessness and sadness comes from this.

Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo