I am your dad

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 what 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 a show of confidence. These scenarios are gone, these people have scattered, those who are still alive have aged prematurely, and I no longer speak or view myself in the same way. Sometimes, I feel as though 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. Having walked 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 there’s no such thing as coincidence—it was all something that had to be experienced. I don’t believe a person can have more than one choice. Culture is terrifying, like food—you either 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 acquired through education. I feel as though I’m swimming in the ocean, surrounded by endless waves, wondering when I’ll reach the other shore, with a clear, innocent mind like a newly fallen primitive human. 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 may be the fate of a writer, and understanding it is useless.