1. Introduction
This article records some of my thoughts about life. It is not a rigorous theory of life, but simply an attempt to organize my own understanding.
This article was written in 2024 and reflects the stage of life I was in and how I thought at the time. When migrating it to this site, I made only minor adjustments to some wording.
2. Why Think About Life?
2.1. Instead of Being Consumed by Anxiety, Think About Meaningful Questions
When I am under a lot of pressure, I tend to become anxious. Anxiety then makes me repeatedly think about many things that have not happened yet. Rather than being overwhelmed by those thoughts, I prefer to direct my attention toward questions that genuinely matter and write down what I think about them.
2.2. Approaching Thirty, It Is Time to Think About What It Means to "Stand Firm"
As I approached the age traditionally associated with "standing firm," I began to seriously think about what I actually wanted to stand for. Confucius once said:
At fifteen, I set my heart upon learning; at thirty, I stood firm; at forty, I was free from doubts; at fifty, I understood the decree of Heaven; at sixty, my ear was attuned; at seventy, I could follow my heart's desires without overstepping the bounds.
This was Confucius's summary of the stages of his own life. Here I am mainly interested in the phrase "at thirty, I stood firm": what exactly does "standing firm" mean?
Different commentaries offer different interpretations. In his discussion in The Analects: Translation and Annotation, Yang Bojun interprets it as understanding ritual propriety and becoming confident in one's words and actions. His main evidence includes "Be inspired by the Songs, take your stand through ritual, and achieve completion through music" from the Analects, Tai Bo, and "If you do not study ritual, you have no way to establish yourself" from the Analects, Ji Shi. Under this interpretation, the "standing" Confucius described is closely related to ritual propriety.
However, Confucius lived in the late Spring and Autumn period, when the feudal states were in conflict and society was unstable. His political ideal of restoring the rites of Zhou was difficult to realize in practice. Confucius traveled among different states in the hope of putting his political ideas into practice, but repeatedly encountered setbacks. The Records of the Grand Historian, in the "Hereditary House of Confucius," records an episode in which Duke Jing of Qi asked Confucius about government and considered employing him, but later abandoned the idea because of practical resistance:
Duke Jing asked Confucius about government. Confucius replied, "Let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister, the father a father, and the son a son." Duke Jing said, "Excellent! Indeed, if the ruler is not a ruler, the minister not a minister, the father not a father, and the son not a son, then even if there is grain, how could I get to eat it?" On another day he again asked Confucius about government, and Confucius replied, "Government lies in economizing expenditure." Duke Jing was pleased and intended to grant Confucius the fields of Nixi. Yan Ying remonstrated: "The Ru are eloquent and cannot be constrained by ordinary rules; they are arrogant and self-righteous and cannot be treated as subordinates; they exalt mourning, indulge grief, and impoverish families through lavish burials, so their customs cannot be adopted; they travel about persuading rulers and seeking support, so they cannot be used to govern a state. Since the great sages passed away and the Zhou royal house declined, rites and music have long been in disrepair. Now Confucius elaborates appearances and ornaments, complicated ceremonies of ascending and descending, and detailed rules of movement. Even generations would not exhaust his learning, nor could one master his rites within a lifetime. If you wish to use him to change the customs of Qi, this is not the way to put the common people first." After that, Duke Jing continued to receive Confucius respectfully but no longer asked him about ritual. On another occasion, Duke Jing detained Confucius and said, "I cannot support you as the Ji family does." He treated him at a level between the Ji and Meng families. Officials of Qi wanted to harm Confucius, and Confucius heard of it. Duke Jing said, "I am old; I can no longer employ you." Confucius therefore left and returned to Lu.
Even so, Confucius continued to pursue his political ideals throughout his life. In my view, rather than interpreting "standing firm at thirty" as reaching a standardized social milestone, I prefer to understand it as gradually finding a direction that one is willing to invest in for the long term and beginning to take responsibility for that direction.
2.3. From Technical Planning to Life Planning
Whenever I was asked about career planning in the past, I often gave a formulaic answer without much thought: reach a certain position after a certain number of years. At work, when discussing technical planning, it was also easy to reduce planning to completing a certain project by a certain date. In fact, I had never seriously asked why those goals mattered.
Planning should not be only a timeline. If a technical system can be planned by considering its current state, goals, problems, and actions, can a life be examined seriously in a similar way? That became another reason for me to continue thinking about this topic.
2.4. Summary
The rest of this article mainly discusses three questions:
- What is life?
- What factors influence life?
- How should we plan a life?
3. What Is Life?
Taken literally, a life is a person's lifetime. We can begin by discussing two parts:
- The person
- The lifetime
3.1. The Person
From an evolutionary perspective, humans and modern chimpanzees share a common ancestor and later evolved along different branches. Humans themselves are animals and have the same basic biological needs for eating, sleeping, and reproduction.
So compared with other animals, what characteristics stand out in humans?
In the Chinese intellectual tradition, Mencius famously discussed the distinction between humans and animals. In Mencius, Li Lou II, he wrote:
The difference between humans and beasts is slight; ordinary people cast it away, while exemplary people preserve it.
Yang Bojun explains in his Mencius: Translation and Annotation that the difference between humans and animals is not great; ordinary people may discard it, while exemplary people preserve it. Following this line of thought, moral awareness is one important distinction between humans and other animals.
In the Western intellectual tradition, Marx, in Capital, refers to Franklin's definition of humans as tool-making animals. The related discussion is commonly summarized as the idea that humans can make and use tools in labor and thereby transform nature.
These judgments each have their own historical context and emphasize different aspects of humanity. Moral awareness, tool making, labor, language, and abstract thought all depend on human cognitive abilities. Rather than searching for one simple "essential difference," I am more interested in another fact: the human brain is plastic, and learning and experience continually change neural connections and patterns of activity. This means that throughout life, people can continue to learn, revise their understanding, and change their actions. As for whether I learned this in middle school or high school, those ancient neural connections have become a little difficult to recall.
3.2. A Lifetime
As long as a person is alive, they continue to engage in different activities. Connect what a person does at different times and places, and those activities form the trajectory of their life and, to some extent, reflect their value choices.
Take Su Dongpo as an example. Exploring Su Shi's Life Trajectory Through Time and Space visualizes the geographic scope of his activities throughout his life.
Visualization of Su Shi's life trajectory. Source: StoryMaps.
He left behind a rich body of work in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and food culture. He also experienced repeated rises and falls in fortune, yet maintained a relatively open-minded attitude toward life. As he wrote in "Calming the Waves":
Do not mind the sound of rain beating through the forest; why not chant and walk on at ease?
Whatever a person's achievements, their time is always limited. The activities to which a person devotes that time, and how they distribute it among those activities, ultimately make up the life they experience.
3.3. Summary
For now, I would summarize my understanding of life this way: human time is limited, but people can continually adjust their understanding through learning and reflection, and based on that understanding, choose how to use their time. Those choices cannot completely determine a life, but they can shape it to some extent.
I say only "to some extent" because life is also affected by many factors that individuals cannot decide for themselves.
4. What Factors Influence Life?
4.1. Starting with "Fate"
My parents told me that when I was born, my family chose my name partly according to the traditional Five Elements. As the saying goes, you make up for whatever is lacking, so my name ended up containing a character associated with "earth." I do not believe that traditional fortune-telling can determine a person's life, but this small story raises a question worth taking seriously: which parts of life come from inborn conditions, which come from the external environment, and which can be changed through our own choices?
4.2. Genes and Environment
A person develops from a fertilized egg. The chromosomes in that fertilized egg carry genetic information, and genes in DNA are basic units of heredity.
Genes influence many human traits, but complex characteristics such as height, appearance, personality, and health are usually not determined directly by a single gene. They are often shaped by the combined effects of many genes, the environment in which a person grows up, lifestyle, and chance events. Even identical twins with highly similar genetic information can develop different personalities, habits, and values when raised in different environments.
Returning to the subject of life: inborn conditions cannot be chosen by the individual, and accidents and external circumstances cannot be fully controlled. But there is still some room to adjust the learning environment, lifestyle, information one is exposed to, and concrete actions one takes. These adjustable factors influence a person's understanding and choices, which in turn influence the trajectory of their life.
4.3. Summary
Life is influenced by both inborn conditions and the external environment, while also containing parts that individuals can choose and adjust. Together, these factors create the different lives that people experience.
5. How to Plan a Life
Life planning is an enormous topic. Here I only want to briefly summarize how I think about it.
First, there is little value in spending too much energy on inborn conditions that cannot be changed or accidents that cannot be predicted. Instead, identify the parts that you can influence. Second, improve your understanding through learning and practice, identify the categories of activity that genuinely matter at your current stage of life, then allocate time, take action, and review the results regularly based on your current goals.
For me, the activities worth paying attention to over the long term mainly include:
- Learning: continuously improve my understanding and abilities
- Health: maintain the foundation that supports other activities
- Love: learn to build and maintain important relationships
- Work: it occupies a substantial part of life and allows people to sustain themselves, take responsibility, and create value
- Recreation: preserve room for rest, interests, and a sense of ease in life
This list is not a fixed answer. As life stages and real-world conditions change, the priorities among these activities also need to be reassessed. The purpose of planning is not to control every outcome, but to use limited time more consciously under uncertainty.
This article was first published on ThinkerQAQ's personal blog and syndicated here by the author. The original article may be revised over time; please refer to the personal blog for the latest version.
Top comments (0)