Waves Scouring the Sand — Gold Grains in the Sea of Sand

The great river winds; the wind rolls the leaves like lonely clouds. One stands amidst the river, sifting through the sand.

Eighteen years pass, sifting out but one body and one soul.

The road here was long, the road ahead is long. I have arrived here, but I do not know where I belong. I liken myself to a mere passerby, a mayfly living but half a day, like dust falling into water.

Stepping into the chaos, I discerned the dullness and departed; gazing from the vast distance, I came with hope but arrived in disappointment.

I entrust my sincere sentiments to this place, pouring everything into poetry and prose, vainly hoping to leave behind a single shocking line…

Alas, my talent is shallow, my learning sparse, and my experience meager. Regretting my failures, I dwell often on the past, tears streaming down. Thus, this collection, “Gold in the Sand,” comes to be…

Perhaps I, too, have deceived myself, chasing an impossible goal, even if it meant abandoning many similar possibilities…

I, too, have wondered whether one should be happy or in pain; and who am I? Later, when a group of people left me one by one (or was it I who left them?)…

I have completely proven—that I am not needed. Of course, this is not a bad thing.

My choices can be borne by myself; I shall put them into practice.

My regrets are no longer tears in my eyes, but the dust behind me. To spin a cocoon is to bind oneself, yet one can also break the cocoon and achieve nirvana. I do not accept a life of cowering in fear.

My eyes should not hold only fear, even if memories cannot illuminate reality…

How much must be paid to purchase the future? I fear the answer does not exist.

An imperfect life is equally worthy of expectation…

I will be reborn beneath death,
And I will grow strong in moments of cowardice.

When the Tide of Oblivion swallows human memory, only by pressing the shutter and writing down the romantic stories can we truly Remember…

Romance is this: whether it be Destruction, Nihility, or Oblivion, all are magnificent instants…

If one is unwilling to part with what one cherishes, how then can one exchange for items of heavy price…?

What exactly have I forgotten?

On the boundless wheat field, I collected grains of wheat along the way—

The teacher told me to pick the largest one. Some students picked the first ear, others took the last stalk; some regretted, some rejoiced… Here, there was one who walked the entire wheat field without ever reaching out a hand. He always hesitated, wondering if he was worthy, if he should keep it.

He endured loneliness, yet witnessed the myriad forms of life.
He is a guest of the human world…

On the wheat field filled with gold, I toiled day and night—

Elders left behind jokes of buried gold. Some gave up on the so-called scam, some pinned their hopes on eternal gold. In this fertile soil, some rejoiced, some suffered. Yet there was one, who held neither hope nor departed.

He went through untold hardships to forge an epic of the golden plains.
He is a long dream of disillusionment…

Beside the wheat field atop the cliff, I watched from the edge—

Fearing children would fall into the abyss, yet unable to bear the meaninglessness of powerless dissuasion. On the Watcher’s wheat field,

He witnessed the romance of those marching toward death, inscribing human nature.
He composed the stories…

On this land filled with fables,
I have walked through eighteen years of springs and autumns.
Thinking I had experienced all four seasons:
The revival and vitality of Spring have just passed;
The enduring battles of Summer arrived quietly;
The harvest of Autumn was never seen;
The snows of Winter departed, never to be seen again.

Life holds countless cycles of seasons. We countlessly: prepare, pay the price, harvest, savor…
In the end, what we are too late for, what we cannot let go of,
Is the original self—sincere, simple, dreaming.

The so-called impossible is merely that which has not yet arrived.

I once prayed for death in my dreams, yet lived on in fear and anticipation.

I heard countless questions, interrogations, rhetorical questions, and doubts: What is the meaning of life?

Just because life always returns to death—that final ending that life cannot shake—does that mean life has no meaning…? Someone desperately wanted to end a meaningless life; he was unwilling to fail again, a failure of not reaching the goal. Even if the destination he reached with smooth sailing was merely a lonely island of sorrow and regret.

But every life shares a common ending. Therefore, all the complex choices in the process of life can be counted as meaning. Finding a goal in life counts as a meaning. Resisting meaning is the conspiracy under the umbrella of “meaninglessness.” Furthermore, this import is not of semantics or lucre.

No matter how mythology and science discuss life—the meaning of life lies in— δ-me13, in the process of solving for the self.

A clap of thunder that will eventually shake the clear sky and pierce the rainbow—

The mayfly shakes the tree; the Roc flies North;
The shores of the Netherworld and Acheron, the falling moon and the Firefly rushing to the flame;
A drunken guest in a foreign land, dreaming a thousand miles away.

The Road Ahead:

It is the love for mathematics and logic,
The appreciation of poetry and art,
A fearless dream,
Severing the past Nihility,
Restraint with a singular heart,
No longer speaking lies to myself,
The determination to decide when a decision is needed,
And a promise I have not yet fulfilled…

Inadvertently, I have welcomed my eighteen years.
It is the first, most brilliant burning of this morning sun.

Wish me a tranquil journey—a mayfly guest deep in slumbering dreams.