Use What Once Saved You to Save the World
An Era Continues
Recently, whether through reading or watching videos, I’ve felt strongly that the problems we face and are trying to solve today were encountered and explored by our ancestors hundreds or thousands of years ago.
In Thirteen Invitations (十三邀) featuring Zhong Shuhua (锺叔河), he made a point that resonates:
“The works from a century ago represent the continuation of our human progress. That process has not ended, nor has it reached a perfect conclusion. It will never have an end. Some of their past troubles, explorations, and hesitations still have direct significance for us today.”
One of the benefits of reading is the ability to travel through time and communicate with people from different eras—a truly magical experience.
The fact that knowledge and wisdom from centuries or millennia past can be passed down is perhaps a blessing of human civilization, made possible by written language.
Sometimes, I feel a sense of sorrow. While the internet solves the problem of information silos, it also generates countless information noise.
How do we filter and efficiently learn valuable knowledge? How do we share and benefit from excellent knowledge?
For a moment, I yearned to be in the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought, the time of Socrates, the Renaissance, the age of Einstein, the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican era, or the time of the Red Revolution. I wanted to see how the great figures of those times thought and made decisions. It feels like people in those eras had an endless spirit of exploration, a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty, and a sense of belief.
Effie, the author of Getting to the Point (直击本质), wrote in the preface: “Use what once saved you to save the world.”
What is life? What is death? Perhaps only by truly understanding the meaning of life, the meaning of being alive, can one realize that they are truly living and feel the vitality that comes with it.
It’s not about you saving the world. It seems that it is always the tiny human beings themselves who need to be saved. If this world truly becomes ill one day, I hope that when someone stands up, that someone can be you.