In 2022, many things changed in our lives. For example, the sound of firecrackers, absent from cities for years, finally returned. The authorities kept issuing strict bans, but neither people’s long-repressed emotions nor an ancient tradition that has lasted for thousands of years on this land can simply be erased.
In 2022, we witnessed a low point of civilization. The great bell was cast aside while the clay pot rang; countless people suffered under the crushing weight of power. Fortunately, thunder still comes from silence, and the curve of civilizational decline still has temporary rebounds. Perhaps no one expected the fire in Urumqi to spread across the whole country. Between people and their long-lost courage, there was only a blank sheet of paper.
In 2022, we finally caught a glimpse of normal life. The price was overflowing pharmacies, hospitals, and funeral homes. On the afternoon of January 18, I walked into a somewhat unfamiliar entry-exit administration hall and saw it packed with people. Long lines stretched in front of the passport counters. People seemed ready to run toward the world. But who knows? Maybe before long, the open door will close again at just the right moment.
Facing an absurd world, I have also thought about the purpose of life. Especially when land I had worked hard to cultivate would not bear fruit, and when the distant shore I had searched for so long would not appear through the clouds, I felt regret and sadness. But the world gives no answer. It is like the pendulum of a clock, swinging endlessly, repeating a purposeless return.
Later I read Camus and learned that the world is absurd, and life has no purpose. Or rather, existence itself is the purpose. We do not need to rack our brains searching for the purpose of life, because a life with a fixed purpose is sad and runs against the absurdity of the world. All we can do is recognize the absurd and embrace the void.
In 2022, I embraced the void in my own way. The year before, I bought a small apartment in my third-tier hometown as one of the material conditions for marriage. The purchase landed exactly at the peak of both housing prices and mortgage rates. If I had to calculate profit and loss, I had already taken a loss of nearly 200,000 RMB within a year.
For a while, my state of mind was poor, especially when the very purpose of buying the apartment seemed to be moving away from me. Later, I finally recovered the essence of existentialism. I am Sisyphus, endlessly pushing the stone up the mountain, and my life is the stone that keeps rolling back down. I told myself: my apartment is not a means to achieve some other purpose. It is the purpose itself. It is a quiet space where I can be alone, an anchor while I sail at sea, and the foundation of all my spiritual freedom.
Yes, pursuing spiritual freedom, recognizing the absurdity of the world, and embracing the void of life were the greatest things 2022 gave me. In 2023, I will try not to cling to so-called purpose, not to obsess over the absurdity of the world, and instead live attentively and freely.
Finally, at the last moment of the Year of Renyin, I wish all of you a way out of the low valley of the old year, and a life you truly want.