Making Peace with Yourself, Dessert Shops, and Creator Videos: Only Scroll Through Short Videos When Your Energy and Vibration Are High

I. Magnetic Fields Attract; Circumstances Change with the Mind

Social media and short videos are only suitable for scrolling when you are at a high frequency and have plenty of energy.

When you are at a high frequency and have plenty of energy, what you encounter as you scroll is also high-frequency and high-energy. At these times, you also have strong boundaries and a strong sense of connection. Your authentic self resonates with the truth, goodness, and beauty of the world.

When you are at a low frequency and have little energy, what you encounter as you scroll is also low-frequency and low-energy. At these times, your boundaries are weak and your sense of connection is weak. You resonate with low frequencies, and the ego grows stronger. The brain repeats itself mechanically, unable to stop, like someone with diabetes who craves sugar. Short videos are desserts precisely tailored to the “brain’s needs.” The brain is a sophisticated thing shaped by hundreds of millions of years of evolution. Though it is not perfect, using it this way feels a little like treating it shabbily.

I have been doing well these past two years, and scrolling Xiaohongshu often gives me a profound sense of tranquility, of being moved, and of connection. Weibo and Zhihu rarely give me a high-frequency feeling; it is easy to get caught in low-frequency repetition there. Xiaohongshu, by comparison, makes it easier to see the world, see other people, and see myself. (I have written several pieces analyzing Xiaohongshu before.)

But when you are at a high frequency and have plenty of energy, you do not “need” social media or short videos quite so much. You lack neither information, relationships, nor connection, and you do not crave novelty and stimulation. There is ultimately a limit to the high frequency and high energy that social media and short videos can carry. And ultimately, high frequency and high energy come from the tranquility and ease of your authentic self.

II. People Who Feel Deprived Wait by the Tree Stump for a Rabbit

Often, the act of “scrolling” is a kind of waiting: waiting by a tree stump for another rabbit to run into it, or waiting like a wife turned to stone as she watches for her husband’s return.

It is certainly not that people have never found anything of high quality on social media or in short videos. Precisely because they once found a little something of high quality there, people who feel deprived wait by the same tree stump for another rabbit, or mark the side of a moving boat to find a sword dropped into the water.

People long for deep relationships, love, and deep connection with the world and with other people. Even arguments, attacks, and anger count as a kind of connection.

In other words, “addiction” to social media and short videos is less like addiction to tobacco or alcohol and more like addiction to a dessert shop.

III. Making Peace with Yourself, Dessert Shops, Social Media, and Short Videos

Social media and short videos are ultimately just desserts. Browsing social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu is like browsing a dessert shop: there is no need to fear them as you would a tiger, nor should you become consumed by them. Making peace with dessert shops is a task for every child and every person living in the modern world. In *Friends*, Monica’s therapist tells her: “That’s just food. That’s not love.”

Fearing a dessert shop as you would a tiger, loathing yourself, and responding to it with curses, vows, and rage only reveal the karmic obstructions within—a child starved of love.

Just as dessert shops also have high-quality desserts that are low in sugar, made with high-quality dairy cream, and beautifully and adorably shaped (rare as these may be), having one occasionally after exercise, when you are in a good mood and feeling well, places no burden on body or mind. Only then are you truly in a relationship of deep connection with desserts, appreciating and savoring them, rather than in a toxic relationship of swallowing them whole and loathing yourself.

But when you are not doing well, it is still better to keep some distance from the dessert shop (uninstall the various apps). Out of sight, out of mind. It is a good thing if keeping your distance helps; just keep your distance.

Make peace with yourself, dessert shops, social media, and short videos, and be in a healthy relationship with them.

I, too, have had a deeply conflicted and complicated attitude toward short videos. At first, I simply despised them, and I became aware that this was mixed with elitism, the anxiety of someone raised to excel at exams, envy and jealousy toward people who had become rich in the short-video era (including peer pressure from classmates my age who held senior P-level positions at major tech companies), and anxiety about the education of young people. Later, I came to view them somewhat more neutrally. My own later decision to make videos explaining the *Collected Works of Marx and Engels* also reflected the idea that outreach needs to suit the times.