A Drift in the Gloaming

     For some time now, I’ve been wrestling with a disquieting blend of frustration and anxiety. Spurred by an impulse a fortnight ago, I spent two days hastily arranging to rent a small flat near the university, finally leaving behind the halls of residence I had called home for three years. As I departed with my suitcase and the last of my belongings, I glanced back at the university’s iconic archway. In the evening gloaming, the gate shimmered with the golden light of the setting sun, just as it had on that morning three years prior, when I first walked through it, brimming with anticipation. Now, however, the grand arch felt glaring, almost mocking, and all I wanted was to flee.

     A fortnight of living alone has indeed brought a measure of calm to my turbulent thoughts, and I’ve finally resolved to write something down, to leave a record of these past six months. In fairness, this half-year has not been entirely devoid of interest. I managed to travel during the holidays, fulfilling a few long-held wishes. Before the term began, I journeyed to Changsha and western Hunan, gazing out over the Xiang River from Orange Isle, visiting the ancient Yuelu Academy, and exploring the ‘Border Town’ depicted by Shen Congwen. The place where the Chairman once composed his poetry is truly magnificent, though I confess I no longer possess that youthful fire to “command the elements.”

     During the Qingming festival, I found myself alone in a drizzly Guangzhou, making my way to the Huanghuagang Mausoleum. I feel a touch of shame admitting that, despite long wishing to pay my respects to the martyrs, this was my first visit in three years of living here. The park was serene and solemn, shaded by green pines and cypresses. The four golden characters, “Their Noble Spirit Endures”, penned by Dr Sun Yat-sen above the stone pailou, seemed particularly stark and dignified against the overcast sky. Beyond the tomb passage, floral tributes lay piled before the white memorial, and behind it, a pristine Statue of Liberty held her torch aloft, a symbol of sanctity and resolve. Reflecting on the past, on these martyrs who gave their lives for freedom, I could not help but feel a profound sense of my own inadequacy. After bowing and leaving my flowers, I left quickly. Later, a trip to Hong Kong with a classmate for May Day and watching the dragon boat races at Haizhu Wetland Park for the Dragon Boat Festival added some colour to my days. These excursions, along with the thrill of dabbling in stocks and cryptocurrency (despite significant losses) and the minor amusement of tinkering with a new OS for my phone, constitute the bulk of what I can recall as “pleasures” from this period.

     Viewed this way, life doesn’t seem so bad—so long as I avoid thinking about the “proper path”. My third year of university is drawing to a close. After more than twenty years cocooned in the ivory tower, I am finally approaching its gates. Gazing out from my flat window, the path ahead feels shrouded in mist, and I am overwhelmed by indecision. Although I committed to preparing for the postgraduate entrance exams six months ago and have been studying daily, I know, deep down, that this is just another form of escapism. I am avoiding the fundamental question: once I leave the ivory tower, where will I go? People around me offer sharp reminders that, in my twenties, the carefree days are long gone. The impending exam at the year’s end looms over me, a constant source of dread, unpleasantly reminiscent of the disastrous Gaokao—the national college entrance exam—from three years ago. I detest the word ‘failure’; it feels too heavy, too suffocating, even now. I don’t know what success truly means, nor am I certain I can achieve it. Swept up in a race I feel I did not choose, I have lost my bearings and forgotten why I started running. Perhaps, when all is said and done, it is simply that I refuse to accept my own ordinariness.

On the ocean side,
I feel that I’m so small myself!
On the mountain top,
I see the sky up so high!
-- Amy Sand, Mark of Grace

     The wild dreams of my youth have shattered one by one, leaving behind a tangle of loose ends. It would be a lie to claim I have no regrets when something I poured my heart into has proven futile. Facing a nebulous goal, swept along by the current, I continue to run, but the sense of powerlessness is utterly exhausting. Recently, I have found solace in the music of Pu Shu and Chen Hongyu. Their plainspoken, melancholic, and world-weary songs, tinged with a stubborn, youthful defiance, resonate with me.

Youth gets drunk again,
In an obscure embrace
Wasting time with laughter,
Parting with a generous grace.
-- Chen Hongyu, A Man of Thirty

     The greatest regret in life is that one cannot possess youth and the awareness of youth at the same time. As the carefree boy I once was recedes into the distance, the man I am still becoming must face these growing pains alone, often on the verge of tears in the dead of night.

     Loneliness has been the most acute feeling of these past six months. As friends choose different futures, we all strive onwards, but the shared camaraderie of our younger years is gone.

To and fro on the long road,
Do you really want to go?
-- Pu Shu, The Ordinary Road

     I know I cannot expect to be supported and encouraged at every turn, but this is the first time I have felt the path forward to be so profoundly solitary. To see mentors I admire falter or walk away has been nothing short of heart-breaking.

I used to be like you, like him, her,
Wild flowers in the mist.
Growing wild and running free,
Living life just being ordinary.
-- Pu Shu, The Ordinary Road

     That line from Pu Shu, about the “wild flowers in the mist”, strikes a deep chord. Lonely, ordinary, yet free—it seems to be the very state I yearn for. I hope that “In the valley, in the forgotten corners, the wild lilies can have their spring.”

In the jumbled hills, the evening sun glows and fades,
Endlessly, I listen to falling leaves and the cold spring’s cascades.
-- Qu Qiubai, Impromptu

     I hope I can learn to accept this solitude and my own ordinariness, to gather the beautiful fragments of life, and to walk on, bravely facing the future. And, I hope I can find a way to properly bid farewell to the fellow travellers with whom I have parted along the way.