On a Surface of Sparse Rewards

Translation note

This post was translated from Nicole’s original Chinese by GPT-5; the Chinese original prevails.

Honk, welcome to my pond!

Here I will collect some glimmering fragments: physics, mathematics, algorithms, films, recipes, illustrations, music, books, car repairs, and ways to improve one’s quality of life on a tight budget, among other things. I feel the need to keep a record because my life seems to have arrived at a stretch of water where rewards are sparse, where every direction looks like circling in place. Then I drift into distant branches of a river, caught in the nets of unpredictable fate and cast onto another unfamiliar surface. I can hardly do any particular thing to influence my own life; so writing something becomes the smallest dose of resistance I can offer to this absurdity.

A guest said: “A couple of ephemerides launched on the ocean in a rice-husk! Alas! life is but an instant of Time. I long to be like the Great River which rolls on its way without end.

Ah, that I might cling to some angel’s wing and roam with him for ever! Ah, that I might clasp the bright moon in my arms and dwell with her for aye! Alas! it only remains to me to enwrap these regrets in the tender melody of sound.”

Master Su said: “But the clear breeze blowing across this stream, the bright moon streaming over yon hills,—these are sounds and sights to be enjoyed without let or hindrance by all. They are the eternal gifts of God to all mankind, and their enjoyment is inexhaustible. Hence it is that you and I are enjoying them now.”

For quite a long time, I could not write anything at all. I was unwilling to face my own limits; I was afraid, and I kept exhausting myself in the struggle. To write this introduction, I returned to Former Ode on the Red Cliffs and found myself newly moved by it. That I can begin to write again has much to do with reaching a kind of reconciliation with my own ignorance. It has given me room to breathe, and to observe and describe one small fragment of the world I inhabit. I am still not as good at certain things as I once hoped to be, and perhaps I never will be. But I do have sincere friendships, I cherish my life, I am still easily moved, and I remain curious about what I do not know. I think I ought to be happy.

My friend smiled as he threw away the dregs from his wine-cup and filled it once more to the brim. And then, when our feast was over, amid the litter of cups and plates, we lay down to rest in the boat: for streaks of light from the east had stolen upon us unawares.

Quotation notes

All quotations are from Su Shi’s Former Ode on the Red Cliffs, translated by Herbert A. Giles in A History of Chinese Literature (1901).