Rubber man

Author: Wang Shuo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Culture is too terrifying, like food. If you don’t eat, you die. If you eat, it shapes you. I doubt its core has been encoded into our genes, so it no longer needs to be acquired through education. I feel like I’m swimming in the ocean, with endless waves rolling on and on. When will I reach the other shore? With a clear, innocent mind like that of a newly emerged primitive human from the trees. About 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 is useless. These books were all written ten years ago or earlier. Back then, I was very self-assured, believed in many things, disbelieved in many things, had strong desires, and thought that what I already knew was everything. The people, scenes, and conversations in these books were what I had experienced back then. They weren’t particularly extraordinary in life. I only thought they were interesting because I didn’t know more, and I wrote them down with pretense. These scenes no longer exist, these people have scattered, those who are alive have aged prematurely, and I no longer speak or view myself in the same way. Sometimes, I feel I’ve lost the ability to continue 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. When I walked through them, I realized that the important things had all happened behind me and had already passed. Moving forward, there’s just an empty void. There’s nothing to regret about the past, and no accidents. Everything was something that had to be experienced. I don’t believe one can have more than two choices.