in the past 22 years i have taken millions of surveys, and each time was asked to choose some certain age group i belong to. answering this question reminds me of growing up and old more than doing anything else. by the time i choose the third option, i probably won’t be noticing i’m in an age my mom considers “too late for marriage” thus “toooo late for having a child”, my dad thinks “it’s the time for career formation”. i won’t be noticing the changes in my face and my life just like i didn’t notice it has been five years since i came to beijing, two years since i graduated, one year since i started living in this lovely apartment. and i just live like this, and time just flies.
My heart is extraordinarily lonely. But my heart is very tranquil, void of love and hate, joy and sadness, colour and sound. I am probably growing old. Is it not a fact that my hair is turning white? Is it not a fact that my hair is turning white? Is it not a fact that my hands are trembling? Then the hands of my spirit must also be trembling. The hair of my spirit must also be turning white. But this has been the case for many years. Before that my heart once overflowed with sanguinary songs, blood and iron, fire and poison, resurgence and revenge. Then suddenly my heart became empty, except when I sometimes deliberately filled it with vain, self-deluding hope. Hope, hope -I took this shield of hope to withstand the invasion of the dark night in the emptiness, although behind this shield there was still dark night and emptiness. But even so I slowly wasted my youth. I knew, of course, that my youth had departed. But I thought that the youth outside me still existed: stars and moonlight, limp fallen butterflies, flowers in the darkness, the funereal omens of the owl, the weeping with blood of the nightingale, the vagueness of laughter, the dance of love… Although it might be a youth of sadness and uncertainty, it was still youth. But why is it now so lonely? Is it because even the youth outside me has departed, and the young people of the world have all grown old? -from “Hope”, 鲁迅, 1925