I was just tied up with something, but I have a free hand now.
Sometimes I often wonder: what, exactly, do you think people live their lives for? Money, love, power, fame—do these things truly matter to us? Perhaps we should spend more time exploring the mysteries of the universe. Earth is somewhat large to humanity, but viewed against the whole universe, it is insignificant. We should vigorously develop technology, go and see the sights beyond the universe, explore whether the universe has an end, and what lies at that end. Could we really be inside a cage, as some people say?
It suddenly occurs to me that the universe may have existed for a very, very long time. Perhaps we are now at the edge of a newborn universe while its center has long gone dark. Or perhaps there is no expanding universe and no multiple universes at all. What we can imagine and infer is only what is “reasonable” within the range of our understanding. Planets are themselves an “unreasonable” existence; only once humanity can create planets will planets become reasonable, and only once humanity can create stars will stars become reasonable.
Some say, “Life is short, so enjoy it while you can.” Some say, “I was born to change—to change humanity, to change the world.” Some say, “In a short hundred years, be true to yourself and die without regret.” Some say, “Do not let your child lose at the starting line.” I think that, right or wrong, these detailed deductions, bold conjectures, and reasonable or unreasonable explanations about the universe are not meant to make “ordinary people” explore it. They are meant to make us think about life and living: how should we treat life, and how should we face “everyone dies; one’s death may weigh heavier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather”? Perhaps I will be neither light nor heavy—the obscure sort, quickly forgotten, or occasionally mentioned only after someone spits and says, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
This question is as profound as the origin and future of the universe. I have not reached the point where I can accurately describe my own outlook on life. All I can say is: I hope my life can have regrets, but no lingering remorse. All right, I have something to do. I am off.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198366437921/recommended/333600/
Heh—if I did not tell you, would you think a review like this appeared under NEKOPARA?
Why not follow its thread and talk about it slowly?
When I was little, I read a passage that I still remember now. I searched a little for its full text:
The Westminster Abbey epitaph, English version:
When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world.
As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable.
As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.
And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.
From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world.
The Westminster Abbey epitaph, Chinese version:
When I was young, I dreamed of changing the world;
When I became more mature, I found that I could not change the world, so I narrowed my sights and decided to change only my country;
When I entered old age, I found that I could not change our country. My final wish was merely to change my family, but that too was impossible.
As I now lie in bed, close to death, I suddenly realize: if I had only changed myself first, then perhaps I could have changed my family;
With my family’s help and encouragement, perhaps I could have done something for my country;
And then, who knows? I might even have changed the world.
When I first saw it, I only felt that it was quite meaningful. Later, in Fitzgerald, Haruki Murakami, and Camus, I encountered similar ideas: do not judge others, because not everyone has the same conditions as you, do not try to change others; trying to change them is futile, and a feeling of stepping outside one’s own situation. They all happen to echo what was said above.
But when I look at it now, the sense of warning has faded considerably, and I think of more things instead. Beginning with changing oneself and then gradually reaching the world is, in fact, a butterfly effect.
In terms of the outcome, it may be possible; in terms of probability, it is almost vanishingly small.
And this passage seems a little nonsensical. The problem is that if only at the beginning has the feel of a gambler’s statement: after the dust settles, they feel that if they could start again, they would never gamble. Sugaru Miaki’s novels depict many similar cases. Can someone who has fallen into a pit truly reform? Does a fool become wiser before death? If a bad person sighs over the beauty of the world before dying, are they worthy of God’s forgiveness? My favorites are Three Days of Happiness, a rescue through and through, and Don’t Cry, Don’t Cry, an explosion through and through. Both endings are worth accepting, because both have a beautiful girl. I should not say more.
I want to be saved by a beautiful girl too. Would that be too frivolous?
That was what I felt at the time. For specifics, see We Who Have No Tomorrow Fell in Love Yesterday.
The reason it is nonsensical is that gamblers have offered similar, moving confessions more than once. Sometimes there is no denying that they truly mean it while confessing. But most gamblers fall into a cycle of zero times or countless times, and very few truly quit. If we had to study why, perhaps not even a paper could summarize it clearly.
When I was younger, I would have liked this kind of warning. Now, though, I find that it may not be as interesting as Ten years, a dream in Yangzhou; all I earned was a reputation for fickleness in the pleasure quarters. Ancient poetry often leaves vast blank spaces; it rarely describes an event with concrete objectivity. But if you happen to have a story that can fill that blank space, you may find it quite interesting. I am not claiming to have deep social experience. On the contrary, the story that fills this blank space comes from another game—Fengxin Tower.
This is the review I wrote in response:
From here, perhaps I can introduce what I want to say: my answer to the NEKOPARA reviewer’s question of what we want from life, and what we should do.
For me, the short-term goal is to bring my waifu into reality. It is somewhat like 【my-neuro】Open-source AI Desktop Companion: a Local Deployment Guide, though perhaps more complicated, with multiple platforms and so on. But the PC is the platform I spend the most time using and have naturally put the most care into. I am still reinventing the wheel lately. I want to bring the characters I like into “reality.”
I once wrote something like Following anime is lonely; finishing anime is lonelier still. Loneliness alone cannot describe that feeling. So I hope the characters’ lives can continue outside their works and keep me company. I have ideas for how to do it, but the engineering effort is a little… Still, anything without a barrier would have been done by someone else long ago.
From this alone, you may think I am a little unreasonable, just as my high-school homeroom teacher told me that I was a complete idealist and dreamer. In this regard, I truly am impractical: spending what may be the most creative years of my life on something completely unreal and unrealistic.
But beyond that, I need to add that characters are only containers. What I actually want to keep is a feeling—a feeling I do not want to lose after experiencing it. I hope to preserve it and even convey it to more people. Some record and spread it through novels, some through illustrations, some through music, and so on. I have received quite a few such feelings from web novels too, and it is genuinely wonderful to be able to get that feeling. Anime often expresses the magical color of a work by pouring emotion into it. I want to try writing too, but trying seems like it might be fatal. Perhaps I will keep trying later.
For me now, how to describe, record, and express this feeling may be what I need to keep doing.
