After I Saw Another World, Desire Started to Grow
Recorded in Chinese
From salaries back home to clients’ stories of wealth in a major city, I feel a divide between worlds. New encounters bring joy, envy, and desire, and I try not to let those feelings trap me.
00:01 I've long wanted to vent about something.
00:04 But this "venting" isn't good or bad.
00:09 I simply want to record how it felt.
00:14 What did it feel like?
00:18 Let me give you an example.
00:23 In one of my
00:27 earlier recordings, I mentioned
00:29 that I'm from a small Tier 5 city.
00:34 In my hometown,
00:37 a friend's relatives
00:42 earn only
00:45 a little over 2,000 yuan a month.
00:49 And that kind of
00:53 level or benchmark,
00:56 or standard,
00:57 is fairly common there.
01:02 It could be 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000.
01:07 Those earning more
01:09 may,
01:10 how should I put it,
01:12 hold higher positions at their companies.
01:18 Here's an even clearer comparison:
01:24 some local public-school teachers
01:29 generally earn
01:33 2,000–3,000, or 3,000–4,000 yuan a month.
01:39 Right after I graduated,
01:43 I worked in my hometown,
01:45 and my salary was considered
01:47 very high by local standards.
01:48 I had joined a private school
01:52 that was very
01:55 willing to spend money hiring teachers.
01:59 After I left my hometown
02:02 and moved to another city,
02:04 one of the so-called first-tier cities,
02:07 I don't know how I got so damn lucky,
02:14 but I met some clients.
02:17 These clients...
02:19 how should I put it?
02:24 I would often hear them talk about
02:28 things from a world I couldn't imagine.
02:34 For example,
02:37 one case went like this:
02:40 children from some families
02:43 would start companies
02:45 or make millions through startups.
02:50 Their parents mock them, saying,
02:52 "Only a few million?"
02:55 "What's that worth?"
02:57 When I heard things like that,
03:00 I thought,
03:01 wow.
03:03 Why was I allowed into this world
03:06 to hear conversations like that?
03:09 How did I get so damn lucky?
03:16 I used to think:
03:19 I started from that earlier level,
03:23 and then, little by little,
03:25 kept walking and walking
03:26 until I reached
03:30 what once seemed to me
03:31 like a world that wasn't mine.
03:34 Did that mean
03:36 I was moving upward?
03:39 But on the other hand, I thought:
03:42 even with people like this around me,
03:45 that doesn't necessarily mean
03:49 that we
03:53 belong to the same world.
03:54 I would feel
03:57 an extremely intense disconnect.
04:02 That disconnect
04:05 sometimes makes me happy
04:07 and sometimes makes me sad.
04:09 When it makes me happy, it's because
04:13 I've found a pretty interesting world.
04:17 I find that the people
04:19 living in this world
04:21 are actually
04:24 what you'd call good people.
04:26 If you run into a problem
04:28 and ask them for help,
04:30 they're really good at helping you.
04:32 They genuinely want to help.
04:37 The flip side of that happiness is:
04:41 how can some people...
04:46 Maybe I'm just envious.
04:49 When that envy becomes too much,
04:51 I compare how I used to live
04:53 or where I am now with their lives.
04:55 And I think,
04:57 wow.
04:59 Maybe
05:01 I'll never
05:03 reach the kind of life they have
05:06 or become someone like them.
05:10 When I see
05:12 people who live better than I do,
05:16 I feel deeply envious.
05:21 When that envy accumulates,
05:24 the desires that come with it
05:27 begin to emerge.
05:32 I'm actually very sensitive
05:35 to my emotions and desires.
05:37 Once I notice them,
05:40 it's hard to make them disappear.
05:45 All I can do is,
05:48 using a very old-fashioned method,
05:51 learn to live with them in peace
05:55 and not let them trap me.
06:04 That's roughly how it feels.
06:09 To me, this world
06:14 is truly full of wonders.