How Much Responsibility Should a Person Bear for Their Own Life?

00:02 I used to hate recording

00:05 things that made me unhappy.

00:09 I don't know why.

00:13 Thinking about it now,

00:16 maybe recording them made me unhappy

00:21 and affected

00:24 how I felt in the present moment.

00:33 So I understood

00:34 why some people,

00:36 some people write in the sand by the sea.

00:41 Then the words are washed

00:47 by an incoming wave

00:50 and disappear completely.

00:52 It's as if the worries I left in the sand

00:56 were carried away by the sea.

01:02 But if you save them on your phone

01:07 or write them down,

01:10 they won't disappear.

01:14 That's also why

01:15 I used to like drift bottles.

01:20 I remember WeChat

01:22 once had a Drift Bottle feature.

01:26 I used it at the time.

01:30 Later, I used drift bottles

01:33 in other apps too.

01:35 But those bottles

01:38 could bring back an echo.

01:40 In other words,

01:42 whatever you chose to release,

01:45 someone might find it,

01:47 and if they replied,

01:49 you would receive the reply.

01:52 That didn't quite match

01:58 the feeling of writing something in sand

02:00 and watching the sea wash it away.

02:04 So I stopped using them.

02:08 Later, I became even more certain

02:11 that I didn't want to record

02:18 the unhappiness or pain I experienced

02:22 and leave it there.

02:24 If I saw it again one day,

02:28 it might make me sad.

02:31 But without meaning to,

02:34 I've done many similar things.

02:40 When I first used Baidu Tieba,

02:44 or when I first used LOFTER,

02:49 I wrote about unhappy experiences

02:51 on them.

02:53 But later, I realized

02:54 that if someone followed me,

02:57 I would—

02:58 I would feel very uncomfortable.

03:02 I wanted to block them.

03:07 I didn't want to expose this to them.

03:11 Of course, many people know

03:14 that

03:20 when it comes to things about ourselves,

03:23 besides us,

03:24 few people really care.

03:28 I also thought:

03:30 if something made me unhappy

03:33 and I told a friend,

03:35 my friend would feel bad too.

03:37 But I didn't want that.

03:40 I didn't want them to carry

03:45 a weight they shouldn't have to bear.

03:48 So when I was unhappy,

03:51 I often chose to carry it myself.

03:54 I didn't want my friends to know.

04:05 I always thought this was good.

04:08 From my own perspective,

04:11 I didn't want to hear their troubles.

04:17 But looking back,

04:19 what kind of friendship is that?

04:23 I don't know.

04:25 I just felt

04:28 I didn't want to worry about others,

04:30 and didn't want them worrying about me.

04:34 So perhaps relationships

04:39 formed under this pattern

04:42 aren't deeply connected relationships.

04:48 The people in them

04:50 are kept too separate from each other.

04:54 Their boundaries never overlap.

04:58 Yet almost every relationship—

05:00 between friends,

05:01 or family members—

05:03 has

05:06 some area of blurred boundaries.

05:10 But I can't tolerate

05:12 those blurred boundaries.

05:15 Former students have contacted me

05:17 to tell me about their daily lives.

05:20 But these weren't

05:22 happy, smooth days.

05:25 They were lives unfolding amid pain.

05:30 I found that weight hard to carry.

05:34 I may have thought:

05:37 when we were still in contact,

05:40 I was the teacher,

05:41 and you were the students.

05:44 At the time,

05:45 I may have had a duty to listen

05:47 to what you told me.

05:49 But years later,

05:51 we were all adults.

05:53 Or rather, I had always been an adult,

05:56 and you had become adults too.

05:58 Our relationship

06:00 was only a past teacher-student tie.

06:01 So I didn't need

06:04 to give you that emotional support.

06:08 And I'm not someone

06:10 who likes providing emotional support.

06:14 So I felt

06:15 I could choose not to carry

06:21 the pain that asked it of me.

06:25 I chose to avoid it

06:28 or not respond.

06:32 From one perspective,

06:34 my choice

06:35 may have seemed very cold.

06:39 But I never explained why I made it.

06:43 So to some extent,

06:46 I may also have left the other person

06:49 oh,

06:49 oh, she doesn't want to talk to me.

06:55 Sometimes,

06:56 if you react

06:59 or respond

07:01 without explaining why,

07:03 whatever consequences follow,

07:06 no matter what they are,

07:08 you have to bear them yourself.

07:10 Once I realized

07:14 I had to bear those consequences,

07:16 I might simply

07:19 make that choice naturally

07:25 and accept what followed from it.

07:31 If every choice is made

07:33 with clear awareness,

07:38 or if we do what seems right at the time,

07:42 then in that situation,

07:46 could it still lead

07:48 to consequences we can't foresee?

07:53 I don't know.

07:55 Sometimes I think

07:58 about what people say:

08:02 who you are now

08:03 is the result of your past choices.

08:08 They only see

08:10 the person you are now.

08:13 But before people became who they are,

08:16 how many choices did they make?

08:19 How many were forced?

08:21 How many were freely made?

08:26 These factors,

08:27 or the forces shaping those choices,

08:30 are selectively ignored.

08:33 It's like a recent

08:37 "interview" I watched.

08:39 I found the person deeply contradictory.

08:43 On one hand, he strongly believes

08:48 that our surroundings shape us.

08:51 But on the other hand,

08:52 when he makes a choice

08:57 that can affect someone else,

08:59 he only sees—

09:02 or chooses to see—

09:02 who that person is right now.

09:04 He doesn't consider their potential

09:09 or their possibilities.

09:12 He doesn't consider

09:14 what choices they made before,

09:16 what environmental limits they faced,

09:18 how their environment shaped them,

09:20 or what possibilities

09:22 that environment gave them,

09:23 leading them to become who they are now.

09:27 Nor does he consider

09:28 what that person

09:31 might have become

09:33 if an opportunity

09:36 had moved them somewhere else,

09:37 and how, by now,

09:39 they might have become someone else.

09:46 I feel

09:47 one part of him is deeply human,

09:54 reasonable,

09:56 and humane.

09:58 But another part is deeply harsh,

10:01 obsessed with efficiency,

10:04 and elitist.

10:10 Perhaps in this era,

10:12 too many people talk to us about ideals,

10:16 ambition,

10:17 and the future.

10:20 But every action they take

10:21 points toward

10:26 the opposite of what I just described.

10:29 And that makes me feel

10:33 that some people give us hope

10:37 and then destroy it.

10:42 That contradiction is deeply painful.

10:49 It's the kind of pain that makes me cry

10:52 while lying in bed before sleep.

10:54 That kind of pain.