Water Ghosts: Resentful Spirits Drowned and Trapped in the River of Fate

I. All Those Feelings That Fate Has Cheated You Are Real

Many people cannot accept the hand fate has dealt them. If only I had done XXX back then, I could have gotten into Tsinghua / joined Google / gotten into Peking Union Medical College / achieved financial freedom.

The most frightening thing is that there is often a real basis for these feelings. The person really was not far from their dream, and it really would not have been that difficult. If they had done XXX, they really could have scored another 30 points and gotten into Tsinghua. That is why the attachment runs so deep.

But for every 100 Tsinghua students, there are 100,000 other students who “almost got in” or “could have, but.” Behind every female star are 10,000 young women who are just as beautiful and hardworking, or even more so. This is an inherent problem with the “tournament elimination model” of early human civilization.

II. This Is a Class Issue

The upper-middle class faces lower costs for trial and error, has more room for mistakes, and has more resources. A child from a poor family who fails the high school entrance exam—or even simply fails to get into a prestigious school—can spend a lifetime trapped in hardship at the bottom of society.

The wealthy have countless chances to turn things around: psychological counselors, extracurricular tutoring, routes to studying abroad, jointly run Chinese-foreign universities, community activities and internships, opportunities to try their hand at entrepreneurship, placements in organizations, and so on. At worst, even if they cannot turn things around, they still have food and clothing and do not need to work in a sweatshop to make ends meet.

III. Water Ghosts: Resentful Spirits Drowned in the River of Fate

For many people, their inability to accept what happened becomes a lifelong obsession. It is as though they drowned here and lost their souls, and now keep marking the boat to find the sword they dropped into the river, searching for their souls in this same spot. They refuse to fade away, refuse to move forward. The river of life stagnates and dries up. Their resentment drags both themselves and the people around them into this whirlpool.

Some people take the college entrance exam more than a dozen times. Some reenact the story of Fan Jin, who finally passed the imperial examination and went mad with joy. Some turn their lives into cosplay, and so on.

IV. The One Fortunate Thing About All These Feelings

Let go and move forward. Good things will still happen in the future—things you could never have imagined, things that exceed your expectations and leave you deeply satisfied. Wang Baoqiang did not become the martial arts master he had hoped to be, but he became a nationally beloved comic actor. Isn’t that good?

How could a child know what they will care about and look forward to in their thirties and forties? How could they know how rich and varied the world is?

Looking back on your life, will you see a succession of things you could never accept, and dissatisfaction with your circumstances and with aging? Or a succession of delighted surprises, the tranquility of innate wholeness, and an acceptance of aging and death? The former is an attitude toward life consumed by obsession; the latter is the Daoist Zhuangzi’s attitude toward life.

V. Do Not Resist Fate; All You Can Do Is Yield to It

Just as when you are drowning, you must not thrash about: that only makes you drown faster and makes rescue more difficult. You need to lie back, float, and move with the current.

I often swim in open water and am comfortable in it. Once, I was swimming in the Jinsha River in Shuifu County, Zhaotong. The water looked calm, but the current was extremely fast. I lay back for a little backstroke and was swept more than a hundred meters downstream. I swam upstream with all my strength, to absolutely no avail. Human strength simply cannot contend with such powerful currents. As the sky grew darker, I became more anxious. Fortunately, I calmed down and looked around. There was a dock downstream with a ladder. By swimming hard and letting the current carry me diagonally, I managed to grab it. Like a special forces soldier infiltrating an oil platform in Call of Duty, I climbed barefoot and bare-bodied, apart from my swimming trunks, up a yellow iron ladder for several dozen meters. Then, wearing only my swimming trunks and still barefoot, I walked past the gantry crane, squeezed through a railing, and walked a kilometer back along the street. Much like my life, in which I so often find myself in a sorry state.

That’s it. Psychology + Marxist class analysis + Zhuangzi, put into practice.