2012 Year-End Summary

This is a belated year-end summary, nearly a week late. These past few days I wanted to collect myself and carefully summarize last year’s situation, but laziness prevailed. It wasn’t until I felt that if I didn’t write it now, I never would, that I respectfully picked up the pen.

At the end of 2012, the world-ending day we had all been eagerly anticipating never arrived after all. Optimists and pessimists alike continued forward, welcoming the arrival of the new year. Not long ago I just celebrated my 23rd birthday. When the page of 2012 turned, I suddenly remembered that we don’t grow day by day, but rather approach death day by day. Before I knew it, I had grown another year older. With the slightest inattention, another three hundred-plus days and nights had silently slipped away. Most unacceptable of all: looking back on this year, there were no fateful encounters, nothing unforgettable for a lifetime, nothing colorful. In short, this year was still an ordinary, unremarkable year. However, the reason life is life is that whether the days are turbulent or stagnant, we always live in the present.

I only returned to Chengdu in November last year and found a job to continue living. Yesterday while riding the subway, squeezed among the coming and going crowds, I couldn’t read anything from their faces. I probably looked the same. Although I’ve only been back here for less than two months, I feel like I’ve already lived here for many years, and will have to live with this same expression for many more years. These kinds of days are truly boring. I pity them, and I pity myself too. I once thought about which direction I wanted to live in the future. However, when I think about how insignificant an individual’s will is in the face of all humanity, how an individual’s life is but a drop in the ocean in the long river of cosmic history—regardless of how much power, how much money, how many desires one can vent, in the end it all vanishes without a trace. So what was I struggling so desperately for? If even an ant’s body can barely survive in this world, then the purpose of human life is still for oneself. To eat one’s fill requires labor. To have confidence requires giving. To communicate requires emotion… In short, life is an instinct.

From April to November, life wasn’t going as hoped. To survive, I worked at an advertising company doing advertising design, which I had previously thought I liked, but only realized after taking the position that it wasn’t the case. This period completely destroyed my long-held design ideal that simplicity is beauty. It also made me recognize even more that design is not the freedom and inspiration one might imagine. In reality, neither are necessary—the client is the boss. For a period after that, I also developed a careless attitude toward the service concept. I believed one shouldn’t give clients too much freedom of choice. The more choices you give them, the more likely they are to suffer from “choice paralysis.” Sometimes delivering work directly makes them feel more comfortable.

During National Day, I went to Shangri-La and Meili Snow Mountain. I went for pilgrimage, and returned with much purity. I thoroughly fell in love with nature, and once again verified the belief that nature makes people more approachable. Afterward, this experience also became my trump card for the second half of the year. I always tell everyone I meet about the air and human warmth under nature—I wonder if these friends have gotten tired of hearing it. Although I’m now in a big city, I truly hate the air here, the colors here, and everyone’s expressionless faces.

Regarding my understanding of life, my ideals for living, and my attitude toward work—I hope in 2013, I can live a bit more delicately. It’s late. Good night.