[Life] Semi-literate Writing

Author: JEFFI CHAO HUI WU

Time: 2025-7-07 Monday, 4:14 AM

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[Life] Semi-literate Writing

I have many friends who read a lot. Since childhood, they have been influenced by various classics from both China and abroad, and they are familiar with them. "Records of the Grand Historian," "Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government," "Tao Te Ching," "Dream of the Red Chamber," "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio"… almost everyone can quote these texts effortlessly; and from foreign literature, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," "War and Peace," "Les Misérables," "Faust," "Anna Karenina"… are all common names in their reading notes. As for me? I haven't read a single one of these books. It's not because I deliberately avoid them, but because I can't understand them, and I don't want to pretend that I do.

Many people give up because they can't understand. They feel they lack the foundation, are unqualified, and are afraid of being laughed at. But I have long let go of this burden. I once tried to read "Zhuangzi," wanting to be "cultured" like others for a moment, but I found myself getting sleepy by the second page. I don't feel ashamed; I simply acknowledge that this approach doesn't suit me.

You remind me of Abing, the blind musician who lived his whole life without sight, never learned to read sheet music, and never attended a music academy, yet played "Erquan Yingyue" on his worn-out erhu. That piece embodies the joys and sorrows of his life, the voice of a blind man perceiving the world, and the reality of his life as he performed in the streets to earn a meal. He wrote an immortal piece in the history of Chinese music with his life. Would you call him illiterate? From a secular perspective, yes. But to say he lacked culture would be an insult to the very concept of "culture."

Not just A Bing. I also think of many others. For example, Chen Jingrun, who was so poor in his childhood that he couldn't afford reference books and had to rely on copying math problems; like Picasso, whose "children's drawings" in his later years were ridiculed by the academic community as messy scribbles, yet those scribbles became treasures in art museums around the world; and like farmer entrepreneurs, who have never studied for an MBA and don't understand business theories, yet still managed to turn a small workshop into a publicly listed company.

I can't say much about the terminology in these examples, nor do I want to analyze what their "success formula" is. But I know one common point: they do not rely on the "starting line" given by others; they only walk the hardest path beneath their own feet. It's not because they are exceptionally gifted, but because they never felt "unqualified to do it."

The mindset I have when writing articles is the same. What I write, to put it bluntly, is the insight gained from decades of life experience, the battles fought repeatedly in real situations, the failures, collapses, struggles, and rises that I have truly experienced. It is not something written down while sitting in an ivory tower, but rather something that has been carved out step by step through pitfalls. It is not to prove how smart I am, but to leave behind a bit of "firsthand experience"—if someone happens to be on that same path, perhaps they can avoid stepping into one more pitfall.

I write very slowly, often spending a long time pondering over a single sentence. It's not because I pursue elegance in my writing, but because I don't have those "standard formats" and "clichés" to rely on. Others can quote an ancient text or add a theoretical segment in their articles, but I cannot. I can only carve sentences out of my own bones, piece by piece.

I know that I am involved in many fields, and I also know that in each of these fields, I am far from being the best. There are those who understand technology better than I do, those who understand literature better than I do, and those who understand philosophy, martial arts, and system design better than I do. But I dare to say one thing:

In these fields, the hardest path is one I quietly walked alone. No team, no mentor, no resources, no one to applaud or cheer, and I could only guess if the direction was right. When I fell, I picked myself up; if no one understood, I could only keep going.

I often say that I don't write for anyone to understand me. I am waiting for that "understanding" person to pass by one day, see it, and nod—then that will be enough. Writing hundreds of thousands of words is not to win applause, but because some things, if not written out, will rot in my heart and turn into unknown dust.

I dare not say that what I write is "literary work," nor do I dare to compare it with those classic masterpieces. But I know that what I write is a kind of "structure," a map that I have summarized after traversing different realms of life repeatedly over the past few decades. This map may not be suitable for everyone, but for me, it is a flashlight to guide me out of the darkness.

You can say I am "a semi-literate writer," but I am willing to take these four words as a badge of honor, because I did not rely on others' light; I gathered firewood bit by bit in the darkness and lit it up myself.

I don't dare to compare myself with historical figures, but I can say that I have likely walked many of the toughest paths in their respective fields! Alone!

Source: https://www.australianwinner.com/AuWinner/viewtopic.php?t=696726