This issue covers my reflections from July to August 2025.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of being visited by a student doing an outstanding alumni project for the Philosophy Department at Sun Yat-sen University. She sent me the interview outline in advance, so I thought I’d pick a few of the questions here and share some of what we talked about, as best as I can recall.

Q1. You enrolled in SYSU’s Philosophy Department in 2017 and completed a master’s in Chinese Philosophy. What first drew you to Chinese philosophy at SYSU? And among all the philosophical traditions, why this one in particular?

The turning point came after I’d gone deep into technology during my undergrad. I started to feel a kind of fatigue and disorientation. When I found myself facing choices like “should I work on the project that wins awards or the one I actually want to do,” I started asking: why am I even doing technical work? For fun? To change the world? In that environment, both felt out of reach — and not being changed by the world seemed like the more realistic goal.

That questioning — about the meaning of technology, about direction in life — was what pushed me toward philosophy. My goal was clear: “not for any other reason, just to find a kind of bearing, a state of mind that could hold the whole cosmos with equanimity.” (From Goodbye, My College Years.) I also wanted philosophy to help me understand “warmth” and “happiness.”

As for why Chinese philosophy specifically — I think my natural way of thinking was drawn to it. I tend to care more about lived practice and inner settledness. My experience during a teaching practicum made this even clearer. Every day I’d walk through the corridors of the primary school reading Chinese and Western philosophy to prep for exams, while the sound of children reciting lessons filled the air. Philosophy’s wisdom and the children’s unstudied purity — together they felt extraordinarily warm. That was the beginning of my emotional connection to Chinese philosophical thought.

Q2. How did your time in the Philosophy Department shape your later path, especially your career choices? You’ve mentioned your philosophy background and your experience as a primary school teacher — how did those seemingly non-technical years influence the way you approach technical work at Tencent? And how do you think about the idea that university is just preparation for employment?

I’d say philosophy shaped my approach to technical work in a few ways.

First, it cultivated a habit of tracing things back to first principles. Philosophical training teaches you to keep asking “why,” and when I encounter technology that instinct kicks in — I don’t just want to know how to use it, I want to peel back the layers to find what’s underneath. That process is genuinely exciting to me; it’s how curiosity gets satisfied. It’s also why my technical path has gone deeper over time — from front-end into client-side development, with a particular fascination with browsers and rendering.

Second, philosophy trained me to think in systems. When I’m in development I try to step back and see the whole product chain at once — evaluating whether each stage makes sense. In terms of business thinking, it’s also a reminder not to be confined to whatever’s immediately in front of me: dig into root causes vertically, survey the competitive landscape horizontally, and think beyond the present toward where things are heading. That habit of stepping outside the current module to see the whole system — I think that’s what philosophical holism looks like in practice.

Third, it strengthened some of the softer communication and expression skills. I won’t go into detail on that.

On the question of whether university is preparation for employment — there’s some truth to it. That’s the traditional path society endorses: college entrance exam, university, job. But you also have to recognize your own possibilities. University should be a time for exploration — figuring out what kind of future you might want and building the resilience to pursue it.

From where I sit, the core purpose of university education is to build out your model of the world. To find different ways of seeing problems. To develop independent thinking. And from all that, to develop a sense of right and wrong — and real empathy. These qualities matter more than any single vocational skill. They’re what carry a person further over time.

Q3. You wrote that programming’s joy comes from “pure creation,” yet in practice technical work often gets distorted by performance metrics. What anti-fragile capacities from philosophy do you find most valuable? And what core qualities should students develop to resist the erosion of meaning?

The anti-fragile capacity philosophy gave me is probably this: it helped me anchor my sense of value internally. That inner anchor means external pressure is less likely to warp who I am. Another thing I’ve been lucky about — maybe luckier than most — is that I had a brush with death early in university. It really drove home the feeling that in the face of life itself, nothing else is all that weighty. We should — we have to — use the time we have to experience what’s rich in life and explore its infinite possibilities.

On core qualities for students, I mentioned some earlier in passing, but let me be more specific. I think there are at least three:

  • The habit of ongoing reflection and review: This is a recurring theme in everything I’ve written — from mood journals to annual retrospectives. It’s how I resist the slow grinding away of meaning.

  • Building a personal system of meaning: Students shouldn’t only learn how — they should think about why. Ask why you’re learning something, why you’re doing what you’re doing. Build a core that isn’t easily shaken by outside forces.

  • Staying genuinely curious: When curiosity is your source of energy, the sense of value and accomplishment you get from exploring and solving problems is the most stable kind. Curiosity isn’t just a personal engine — it’s really the engine of human progress across history.

Q4. The idea that struck me most from reading about your experience is “embracing change.” Did this come from early experiences, or did it crystallize at a particular point? And in a society that now so widely prizes stability, how do you cultivate and sustain that mindset?

It really was that experience of having one foot over the threshold into death that marked the shift — from ordinary student to someone who actively seeks the meaning of being alive. The way I see it, change is opportunity. It’s a chance to step out of comfort and explore what else might be possible. The meaning of life is to fully experience the present, and if you hold that view, you can meet almost any change with more ease.

As for how to sustain that attitude — two things:

  • Ongoing self-reflection: As I mentioned, regular writing — retrospectives, reviews, plans — lets me keep looking at the changes in my life and drawing growth from them.
  • Focusing on inner development: I think genuine security comes from growing in your own capacities, not from external stability.

Q5. What would you most want to share with current philosophy undergrads and graduate students at SYSU?

  • Break down the walls of your discipline: Don’t be constrained by any label. Invest time in engaging with different fields and then synthesize across them — I think you’ll find something valuable.

  • Practice philosophy in daily life: Philosophy isn’t dusty scholarship. There’s an old saying: “The Way is never far from people.” Try using what you’ve learned to analyze a film, a news event, or — like I do — your own life and growth.

  • Find the value in what seems useless: Don’t be anxious about philosophy being hard to monetize. The logical rigor, the wide view, the clarity of expression that philosophical training develops — these are rare qualities in any field. At the same time, cultivate one concrete hard skill that gives your thinking somewhere to land.

Q6. If you had to leave one line from Chinese philosophy that’s most shaped your life, what would it be?

Different lines have guided me at different stages. This question actually came up during my graduate school entrance interview. My answer then was from the Doctrine of the Mean: “If others can do it in one try, I’ll try a hundred. If others can do it in ten, I’ll try a thousand. If you truly follow this path, even the dull will become bright and the weak will become strong.” The idea that diligence can compensate for lack of natural talent is a simple one — but when I was aware that my gifts fell short, it was what I held onto. Even though I hadn’t had systematic philosophy training in undergrad, I was willing to put in more effort; even in areas I’d never encountered, I’d double my effort until I understood. That line still encourages me now. There’s no need to fear the unfamiliar — I have the confidence and the means to master what’s unknown.

The second line might be from my 2021 annual review: “When things go wrong, look within.” When I run into difficulty, it reminds me to turn inward and find room to grow — though the prerequisite is that you’ve already separated out what’s yours to carry and what isn’t. Otherwise, reflection becomes self-punishment.

The third is one I’ve felt strongly in the past couple of years: “My life has a limit, but knowledge has none. To pursue the limitless with the limited is exhausting.” Especially in the years of rapid AI development, the means of acquiring knowledge have become almost frictionless. But if you endlessly chase limitless knowledge with a finite life, you’ll wear yourself out. Better to filter and select — pursue what genuinely interests you, internalize it into new understanding, and keep the inner life calm and natural.

Q7. Finally — three book recommendations?

First: Finite and Infinite Games. I return to it again and again and always find something new.

Second: Existential Psychotherapy. It fits very well with how I think about life.

Third: a hard choice between Why Fish Don’t Exist and Siddhartha. I’ll go with Why Fish Don’t Exist — I hope we can all learn to make peace with uncertainty.

Life Moments

Sharing a few sunsets I caught this month:

Books, Films & Music

Here’s what I consumed this period:

  • Watched: Film | Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Part 1 | ★★★★★
  • Watched: K-Drama | Bad Connections | ★★★★★
  • Watched: Film | F1 | ★★★★★
  • Watched: Film | The Fantastic Four: First Steps | ★★☆☆☆
  • Watched: Series | Storm of Drug Busters | ★★☆☆☆
  • Watched: Film | The Strangers: Chapter 1 | ★★☆☆☆
  • Watched: Film | Emergency Declaration | ★★☆☆☆
  • Read: Literature | Yu Hua’s Literary Lectures | ★★★★☆
  • Read: Art | The Creative Act: A Way of Being | ★★★★☆
  • Reading: Fiction | The Venus of Gold | ★★★★☆