Stay Hungry, Stay foolish
-- New Year Resolution 🩷
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2024 is coming to an end, and now it's time to bid farewell to the past. Let’s continue to chase the light in 2025, and stay hungry, stay foolish.
In 2019, I arrived in Paris. Since then, I’ve stumbled through all sorts of messy pitfalls, crawling and struggling along the way. In 2023, I completed my engineering internship and studies, and at the start of 2024, I officially began my first software engineering job in France. It seems like I should be grateful to French society for giving me this chance to start over and stay, but things don’t always turn out as expected. Perhaps I’ve picked up the French habit of complaining, as the word “satisfied” never seems to exist.
A few days ago, I had conversations with friends about the current state of Europe, the U.S., and China. I remarked that the world is becoming increasingly fragmented. The U.S. and Europe have reduced trade with China and raised import tariffs, and China, in turn, has had to scale back its reliance on the U.S. market and protect its technologies. A friend said that Europe now feels like a zoo, while the U.S. is engaging in economic suicide. Many of the so-called “elites” who have received higher education lack the foundational education in peace and mutual corporation. The world is increasingly operating in a colonial and competitive survival mode under capitalism.
Capitalists can only see their own interests. Under such a societal principle, human relationships, as [David Graeber] mentioned in his book -- Debt: The First 5,000 Years, are reduced to mere exchanges of mutual benefit. However, a healthy society shouldn’t be like this—it should allow for the coexistence of diverse forms of relationships.
After witnessing so much helplessness and harsh reality, you can’t expect to change everyone. Changing even a small group of people and expressing what you want to convey is comparatively enough to find a piece of pure harmony and resonance. You definitely shouldn’t place your hopes on social media, flaunting an entirely enviable life (after all, people don’t usually present the shitty side of their lives to others).
I’m reminded of my recent visit to the Forum des Images to watch Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart and participate in exciting discussions with new-wave directors afterward. One director mentioned Jean Baudrillard, saying we can be radicant like Amérique:
‘Despite this, in this country, there exists a striking contrast: the growing abstraction of the nuclear universe versus a primal, inner, and uncontrolled vitality. This vitality does not stem from the solidity of its foundations but rather from the very lack of them—a metabolic energy that manifests not only in sexuality but also in work, the body, and commerce. Ultimately, due to its vast space, its technological sophistication, its brutal conscience, and the simulated realities it has opened up, America is the only remaining primitive society. Its allure lies in experiencing it as a primitive society of the future—a complex, hybrid, and densely populated one, a society filled with brutal yet outwardly diverse and therefore beautiful rituals, a society that unfolds as a total meta-social event with unpredictable outcomes. This society’s inner force has already infiltrated us, but because it lacks a past, it cannot be fully conceptualized—making it, at its core, still a primitive society.’
Baudrillard’s vision of America as a paradoxical “primitive” society—a place both hyper-modern and raw, where structure arises from the absence of roots—resonates deeply with the idea that individuals are not inherently bound to the values of where they were born, but instead exists in a world where identities can be fluid, unanchored, and self-defined.
Like for Arendt, a nation is fundamentally a group of people who share a common history, culture, and language; however, nationalism, turns this cultural identity into an exclusive political ideology.In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she highlights how nationalism—when tied to the state—can create exclusionary policies, marginalizing those who do not fit into the dominant national identity.1 So just like lotus plants—rootless yet thriving beautifully—society, too, should embrace different modes of existence, allowing people to find their own place within ever-shifting structures.
In 2024, I accomplished some things, but there are still many unfinished tasks. I encountered new people and ideas, which inspired me to pursue fresh realizations. I traveled to a few countries, walked many roads, savored exotic cuisines, listened to soul-stirring music, danced to graceful rhythms, watched films brimming with creative imagination, and read books across diverse fields. I’ve become more critical by expanding the depth of my thoughts, and realizing that the more I know, the more I don’t know. Finally it turns out to be The only thing I know is that I know nothing.(Socrates’ famous insight)
2025: Moving forward
Travel more roads, visit more countries, experience more differences and diversity, and document what I see and feel, sharing it with the world in various forms. After all, “Life’s journey is never defined by the outcome but by the process.” At the same time, even within unchangeable systems, continue to step out of bubbles to reflect, sediment, discover, and recreate.
Knowing that human cognition and ability are limited — too much leads to excess, too little to cynicism. I hope to achieve finite infinity within my limited abilities and precious remaining time. Sometimes, it’s better than do nothing.
May we all find the possibilities to extend ourselves within this narrow world, keeping warmth and kindness in our hearts, fluidity in our thoughts and souls, aligning our actions and beliefs, always staying ‘hungry,’ afloat, and creating more little miracles.
2025, there’s always a beam of light waiting for us just ahead.
31/12/2024
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"The Origins of Totalitarianism" Part Two, Chapter 9, :
"The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man." --
'In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she highlights how nationalism—when tied to the state—can create exclusionary policies, marginalizing those who do not fit into the dominant national identity. She examines how minorities and stateless people suffer when national identity becomes the basis for citizenship and rights, as seen in the treatment of Jews and other displaced populations in the 20th century.' ↩
