Please don't treat me as a human

Author: Wang Shuo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: These books were all written ten years ago or earlier. Back then, I was very self-assured, believed in many things, distrusted many others, had strong desires, and thought that what I already knew was everything. The people, scenarios, and conversations in these books were things I had experienced at that time. They weren’t particularly extraordinary in life—only because I didn’t know more, I found them interesting and wrote them down with pretense. Those scenarios are gone now, those people have scattered, and those who are still alive have aged prematurely. I no longer speak or view myself in that way. Sometimes I feel I’ve lost the ability to keep writing. When I was young, I thought there were many important things ahead, and that as long as I kept running, I would see them. But after walking through them, I realized that what was truly important had already happened behind me and had passed. Moving forward, there’s just an endless void. There’s nothing to regret about the past, and no accidents—everything was something that had to be experienced. I don’t believe a person can have more than one choice. Culture is terrifying, like food—either you don’t eat it and die, or you eat it and are shaped by it. I doubt its core has been encoded into our genes, so there’s no need for it to be learned through education. I feel like I’m swimming in the sea, with endless waves that never cease. When will I reach the other shore? With a clear, innocent mind like that of a newly fallen primitive person from a tree. As for these books, I personally believe they are a witness to a dark age. To live, to live in self-invented and self-satisfied illusions—this is perhaps the fate of a writer. Understanding it doesn’t help.