For the longest time, I’ve dismissed emotion and elevated reason.
I’ve always believed emotions were fleeting and ephemeral, unpredictable and chaotic.
My interest lay only in the eternal—I gravitated toward rationality and logic, which seemed more stable and enduring. No matter how much time passes or how many people rework them, they yield the same results.
It seemed that only these most refined aspects of thought represent the essence of human wisdom, that only these make knowledge possible and transmissible.
Emotions, by contrast, exist only in the present moment, like sparks that vanish without a trace, leaving nothing behind but the memory of a fleeting dream.
**Put simply: emotions are useless.**Reason guides us in understanding and transforming the world, while emotions prove utterly worthless against nature’s indifference and society’s brutal competition.
Yet this view is ultimately one-sided.
The domain of reason extends beyond the natural sciences; its object isn’t always the external world—eventually, its gaze must turn toward humanity itself.
The pinnacle of rationality involves encompassing human behavior too—what Kant called “legislating for oneself,” pursuing objective moral truth.
If my first thirty years were spent seeking truth, attempting to understand as much of the world as possible, then after thirty I’ve primarily sought goodness, exploring the true meaning of morality, trying to understand humanity itself.
**Objective moral truth manifests in many forms in this world:**Christian doctrine was once synonymous with truth; there’s also the Buddhist scriptures that Tang Seng sought through eighty-one trials, Wang Yangming’s philosophy of mind, even the original aspirations of communism.
Whether objective moral truth exists is enormously controversial: one step forward leads to dogma, one step back to nihilism.
The sophisticated egoism permeating Chinese society is essentially massive nihilism. People don’t believe in anything higher than themselves, so everything becomes permissible.
Meanwhile, my long neglect of subjective emotion in pursuit of objective morality risks sliding to the opposite extreme. A concrete example that recently made me deeply reflect is Viktor from Arcane:
I thought I could end the world’s suffering, but when every equation is solved, all that remains is dreamless solitude. Perfection brought no reward—it only killed the pursuit.
This passage captures how our pursuit of objective moral truth originates from wanting to end the world’s suffering. But suppose that one day objective moral truth is truly discovered, the laws governing nature and society completely decoded, we’ve found the optimal solution for every situation, everyone knows exactly what they should do in any circumstance—the likely result would be the termination of human free will and aspiration, leaving only dreamless solitude.
Even Viktor’s cosmic perspective, observing everything from the universe, and that desolate world where everyone has been formatted—these vividly mirror my recent mental state.
In constantly pursuing the sublime through reason, we’ve unexpectedly converged with the other path, sliding into nihilism, seeing everything as insignificant and worthless—another form of spiritual void.
If objective moral truth exists, it must incorporate human subjectivity.
To act wisely, intelligence alone isn’t enough—something higher is needed.¹
I increasingly cannot understand Chinese society’s obsession with intelligence. Intelligence has brought me nothing but endless self-doubt.
Excessive consciousness is a disease—a genuine, thorough disease.²
If intelligence is only outward-facing, it’s merely instrumental rationality, like those who understand intelligence as a human database or encyclopedia—that’s hardly superior intelligence.
The higher intelligence is self-awareness—this is what Kant meant by reason. Only through this can people break free from external indoctrination, achieve moral transcendence, determine their own purposes rather than becoming tools of some ideology.
But even this isn’t enough. Excessive self-awareness leads to internal contradiction and suffering, paralyzing action.
We need something higher still.
But this absolutely isn’t as simple as the trendy phrase “reject internal friction.”
Honestly, I don’t like how people constantly talk about “internal friction.” How exactly can humans avoid internal friction? By becoming stones?
Or perhaps by taking Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith”—but his stage of faith comes after, and above, the aesthetic and ethical stages.
I’m inclined to believe that internal friction and inner conflict are necessary paths to spiritual growth. Prematurely cementing one’s moral system is ultimately shallow and prone to disillusionment. It’s certainly not the higher thing Dostoevsky spoke of.
Speaking of intelligence, I suddenly recalled a line I once wrote:
For many of you from Tsinghua, the gaokao was your life’s peak.
Re-examining this now, I believe I’ve transcended this point. As a thinker, I’ve surpassed this identity. Perhaps not many will visibly acknowledge this, but that doesn’t matter—the heart knows its gains and losses.
I used to deliberately avoid mentioning this, as it easily backfires. Some people enjoy humiliating elite school graduates; others unconsciously project hierarchies of respect. Even when I reflect on elitism’s drawbacks and the limitations of one-dimensional intelligence, some only notice that you consider yourself elite, that you claim high intelligence. I don’t welcome such misunderstanding and alienation. But whether deliberately mentioning or avoiding it, both ultimately show you value it deep down.
But there is something higher.
What exactly is this higher thing? I can’t yet articulate it clearly, only some vague impressions:
The leap of faith, subjectivity as truth, equality and universal love, independent spirit, free thought, character and integrity, passion and love…
References
**1. Dostoevsky, ** Crime and Punishment
**2. Dostoevsky, ** Notes from Underground