My writing has become far too much! With the accumulation I have at present, I really ought not to be writing so much. I need to rein myself in a bit. No need for my teachers to remind me; I’ve begun to wake up to it myself.
The clamor of this age is also reflected in writing—I quite agree. The things I am writing now, apart from assignments and internal exchanges, are mainly written for myself to read. I feel that writing down certain thoughts is very different from merely imagining them in my head; in the process of writing, I can see my own ideas more clearly. Sometimes I think I have things quite clear in my mind, but as I write on, I realize it is not that at all; and sometimes, perhaps because I hadn’t thought of it, I can think of more, and more comprehensively, in the process of organizing language.
My articles are only posted on my own blog. If I took these extremely immature writings and pasted them everywhere, submitted them everywhere, then I would probably be joining the restlessness of this age. And if I took these writings and publicized them everywhere, still hoping for others to recognize them, then I’d be turning into a minzhe! The problem is that even I myself have not yet fully recognized these articles; one of the purposes of writing them down is, first of all, to let me see more clearly where my shortcomings lie.
The only exception is that I “promoted” my blog on Liu Laoshi’s blog. That was because Liu Laoshi and the others were people I had long admired. I had read Wu Laoshi’s and Liu Laoshi’s books very early on, and the first philosophy of technology teacher I encountered after entering university was Su Laoshi. Their thoughts and interests made a deep impression on me. Of course, the distinctive differences among them are also obvious, but I could clearly sense that there was a “crowd” there, and that my own interests were close to theirs. So naturally I hoped to draw nearer to that crowd; that is why I could not resist leaving my blog there.
Now, my teachers whom I admire have also noticed my blog. I should be content with that and no longer need to “market” myself any further.
There is still a very long time ahead. It is better to keep oneself in a state of being fully charged and ready to go—that is indeed so.
Of course, I will still continue posting my assignments and papers on the blog. Since I put papers online, I am not afraid of people plagiarizing them. I said long ago that although my personal level is not high, anyone who plagiarizes my papers must surely be worse than I am! Putting the papers I am writing now online actually also has the intention of motivating myself: if what I write in the future is still like what I am writing at present, wouldn’t that mean I studied in college for nothing? No progress at all?—Posting these immature writings right now is precisely to motivate myself to keep surpassing myself, to keep making progress! The so-called “being fully charged and ready to go” absolutely does not mean accumulating articles from now on and then taking them out to publish at some future date… that would simply make a laughingstock of oneself! So I insist on posting all the articles I currently think are even fairly good; in the future, I will definitely have to surpass all of these writings.
May 21, 2006
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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