At the beginning of 2024, I celebrated my daughter's first birthday.
I began to actively read some parenting books, with a simple initial intention: there are many things to learn, and there's no reason for parents not to learn. At the very least, I don't want to become a terrible parent in my child's eyes in the future.
During this learning process, I gradually realized that educating a child is essentially about educating oneself; how to interact with a child is how to interact with oneself; discussing a child's life is discussing one's own life.
Coincidentally, it was also my birthday, and I had some shallow reflections on life, which I noted down as a summary of the past year.
No Goals, Just Move Forward#
Most of my peers have had similar growth paths over the past decade or so: compulsory education, high school, university, and work. If we consider the key nodes of these paths as clear goals, people are diverted to various places in the process of achieving these goals, each fulfilling their roles in society. It's strange that achieving goals seems like something to be happy about, yet the reality is not so.
I think this probably stems from the fact that after a clear growth path, the unknown begins to occupy most of life. Humans naturally dislike the unknown, so they tend to set various goals to alleviate this discomfort, even if those goals are difficult to achieve.
In 2016, Jason Fried, the founder of BaseCamp, wrote a short article titled “I’ve Never Had a Goal”,
The gist is that goals are things that disappear once you reach them. We can always set one goal after another, but once we achieve them, they vanish, and then we set another one. (I am more pessimistic; many goals may never be achieved.)
Jason Fried does not intend to deny the significance of setting goals; he describes another way of handling things and a mental state that aligns more with the norm of life: no goals, just move forward.
There are things I have always wanted to do, but if I don't do them, it won't matter. Some goals can be achieved, and even if they aren't, there will be no regrets or sorrow.
One just needs to treat work and life in the same way, doing what one can do now and will continue to do in the future. Perhaps this is a more suitable choice than setting a goal, achieving it, and then continuing to look for the next goal.
Another creative company founder, Jim Coudal, gave a more direct evaluation:
Most people are unhappy most of the time because when we set goals, we do so based not on the self that will achieve the goal but on the self that is setting the goal at that moment.
Whenever I feel frustrated in life, I can't help but revisit works that resonate with me emotionally. Xu Sanduo from "Soldier Assault" often ranks high on my list, and coincidentally, Sanduo also seems to be a person without goals.
Xu Sanduo was first recognized in the Steel Seventh Company after the pole-climbing competition when Shi Jin told him that pole climbing relies on willpower, not numbers. Willpower is certainly not a goal, and a goal cannot drive Sanduo to complete 333 abdominal pole climbs. After he won the pole-climbing victory and was surrounded by his classmates returning to the dormitory, he felt success, and the narration in his voice said:
The dizziness in front of people and the unspeakable pain, this must be the taste of success.
In the Seventh Company, there was no sharpness in his gaze that spoke of grand goals; instead, there was more simplicity and naivety. He didn't know what kind of soldier he wanted to become or what great achievements he wanted to accomplish, yet this seemingly aimless person shocked every comrade around him.
No goals, just move forward. This is certainly not a blind and reckless way of doing things; it is merely an exploration of another possible approach. Focus on doing the tasks at hand well, allowing strength to accumulate unknowingly. Perhaps one day when you look back, you will be surprised to find that the once unattainable goals have quietly been achieved in the process of doing things steadily.
There is a principle in Stoic philosophy that probably expresses a similar idea:
Life is about managing your reactions.
When we spend too much time and energy on things we cannot control, such as the uncertainties of the external environment, the thoughts and decisions of others, it does not help how things will unfold. Setting a goal, whether easy to achieve or not, is clearly easier, but the goal itself is often uncontrollable. If you happen to have the habit of setting goals, you might understand what I mean.
Managing your reactions means accepting that the focus of life is not on what happens but on how to respond. Just moving forward is such a response.
Essence and Constancy#
Another person who often comforts me is Ichiro Kashimi. The algorithm seems to sense my emotional issues and keeps pushing his books to me. One day, I casually opened a page and was moved.
The world is simple, and so is life; it's just that maintaining simplicity is difficult, as there are endless tests in ordinary daily life.
This year, I began to try to give up some complex choices and focus more on the essence of things. For example, after experiencing several supposedly reliable servers crashing, I decisively changed my notes from cloud storage to local storage in the simplest text format, reducing dependence on any application, environment, or device. I began to focus more on a product's original function rather than the user pain points defined by advertisers, and I shifted from thinking I would use something to questioning whether I truly needed it.
Ichiro Kashimi's book also mentions education. His clear viewpoint on education is that its goal should be to make people self-reliant. To my shame, at thirty-four, I cannot confidently say that I am fully self-reliant.
The last book I read in 2024 was called "Same as Ever," which conveys the idea that despite continuous technological innovations and changing trends, the most fundamental human emotions, desires, and the underlying logic of social operation remain stable. These undercurrents dominate the direction of life.
I consider myself to be emotionally sensitive and easily empathetic, but I have gradually come to understand and accept a pessimistic reality: humanity as a whole is not lovable. Humans are a selfish, greedy, and even brutal species. But precisely because of this, those shining, warm, and great individuals among humanity, who cannot be concealed, are even more worthy of love.
Many things also happened in 2024; some I can recall immediately, while others I have completely forgotten, even if they once evoked strong emotions and indeed existed. I guess it's another protective mechanism of the brain, deliberately downplaying those unpleasant feelings, combined with the magical ability of time to soothe, and life continues.
Ichiro Kashimi also mentioned parting.
The establishment of all interpersonal relationships is predicated on "parting." This statement is not nihilistic; the reality is that we meet to part. If that's the case, things become simpler, and perhaps the only thing we can do is strive for the "best parting" in all encounters and relationships. Only in this way.
Regarding life and parting, I prefer a line from the movie "The Hours":
To look life in the face, Always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last, to know it, to love it for what it is. And then, to put it away.
Face life, understand the essence of life, love it, and then let it go.
Finally#
I initially wanted to discuss children's education, but it ultimately led to the grand and ambiguous theme of life.
This is a topic worth contemplating and discussing throughout one's life, and there is no conclusion, but that does not prevent it from being continually raised.
All I can do is experience it earnestly.
Experience its joys and sorrows, its beauty, pain, success, and failure,
Experience this rare thing, a human life.
On my thirty-fourth birthday, when asked if I had any special feelings today,
I thought seriously and realized there was nothing particularly special.
The weather is nice today, the sun is good, and there's not much wind,
I am still the youngest today.
That's quite good.
Zhou Zhou
2025.01.05