“After watching so many films, you still came home to live off your parents.”

The line that cuts deepest.

I have thought about becoming a writer too. I was still thinking about it through high school.

But if I once had the excuse that youth meant many possibilities, then when age no longer becomes an advantage, did I start to settle down?

Yes, a little. At the same time, I am surprised that most of my past fantasies remained only fantasies, while very few ever became action.

And once time has passed, can I simply say that the age for fantasies is over? When I search online, I find that many major web-novel authors began submitting work in middle school. I am startled by the gap between their ability to act and mine. I also wonder whether my own fantasies were only a waste of time.

But thinking this way leads somewhere crooked again.

“That film was more than just a film to me.”

If the film they made were released publicly, most people in China would probably not even give it a passing score. In other words, the chance of it sinking without a trace would be high.

But that raises a question: should public evaluation be the standard by which a film is judged? Put that way, it becomes clear. Although most poorly rated films are not worth watching, many highly rated films seem completely terrible to me too. Public evaluation is only one point of reference.

Evaluation—or feeling—is always subjective.

For Old Hu, that film means something extraordinary. For those who resonate with it, an art film that ordinary people find unbearably dull can be the most complete expression possible.

What I Have Been Pursuing Is Wrong

I hope to work remotely, from home. Or perhaps not work at all. That was the original intention.

But gradually it has drifted away from that.

Because I need not to go to work → I need exceptional ability → I need to achieve something in a field → I need other people to see me as successful → other people’s evaluation matters more than my own.

This is a distorted transformation, infected by reality. It makes my original intention drift away. What was meant as self-improvement becomes the pursuit of others’ recognition. And this misplaced pursuit may in turn diminish me.

Success Leaves No Trace; Self-Improvement Does

No one’s success can be reproduced. Not in writing, filmmaking, game development, investing… anything.

Yet successful people often exaggerate the twists and turns of their experience, shaping an image of themselves as resilient. They also give everyone a mistaken idea: that success is the result of hard work.

The result of that mistaken idea is that countless people who work hard eventually—or even before the end—begin to feel lost. Especially when confronted with the group that survived the survivor bias, they feel particularly defeated and cannot see what they already possess. Looking forward, universal success leaves no trace to follow.

As I said before, the goal is wrong. First of all, success is defined by the public. It is only a point of reference.

A sophism:

An old beggar has lived on the street for more than twenty years. Everyone on the street knows him. He accepts whatever people give him, along with their scorn, without resistance.

A wealthy merchant is the richest person on that street. But you learn that Death will come for him at noon two months from now: he has tuberculosis.

If you had to choose, which would you choose: the beggar or the merchant? Would you live another ten or twenty years without dignity, or spend your final two months extravagantly before dying?

The ordinary standards by which meaning is measured are usually beyond one’s control. Pursuing success in the ordinary sense is no different from gambling. Gambling itself could be a subject on its own.

The lessons you draw from a failed pursuit do not necessarily point toward success; nor does a successful person’s self-praise necessarily point toward success. No road is marked as leading to it. The more you treat it as the goal, the farther you may drift from it.

To me, self-improvement seems more meaningful.

But self-improvement faces another question: if death is inevitable, where do its meaning and value lie?

Interesting, interesting. I have not found an answer yet.