Borrowed Sparks, and the Galaxy That Will Eventually Return to Silence
English translation of the Chinese original (AI-assisted). Read the original in Chinese.
I am used to sitting at the edge of this world.
Not because I see more clearly than other people, but because I have found that once you take part, your perspective changes.
Stand a little farther away, and many intense conflicts begin to reveal a common outline.
If you ask me what the world looks like through my eyes, I often hesitate.
It does not resemble an elder you can talk to, nor a god looking down on all living things, always ready to answer prayers.
It is more like an order that keeps running: without emotion, without preference, offering no explanations, and neither stopping nor changing direction because of anyone's wishes.
A thousand years ago, the sages called this unspeakable whole "Dao."
For me, it is closer to a calm and restrained structure—it exists, but it does not exist for anyone.
Precisely because of this, I understand why people need religion.
In a world of deep uncertainty, human beings are fragile yet greedy, afraid of losing meaning while longing for a response.
Religion is like a set of long melodies: some people prefer the solemnity of classical music, while others rely on the comfort of folk songs. There is no right or wrong in the melodies themselves. They simply help people find a rhythm within the noise.
I do not reject these melodies. But I know clearly that I do not live inside them.
I can accept a universe that gives no response, just as I can accept leaves falling in late autumn, and look directly at the dying of stars.
Throughout my life, I have tried to build a framework for understanding the world.
It was not meant to prove anything to others, nor to establish a doctrine for others to follow. On the contrary, I have always been wary of any form of following, gathering, or labeling. Definitions that are too loud often wear away, without anyone noticing, the quiet that human beings value.
The motivation for writing these words comes from an extremely private and extremely small thought:
I want to leave something behind for my child.
I do not expect him to understand me completely, nor do I expect him to live along my path. I only hope that, at some point in this uncertain era, he can find a relatively honest coordinate.
It is not an answer, nor a direction. It is simply a stretch of road that has been inspected again and again—with as few hidden holes as possible, without personal biases packaged as truth, and without cognitive risks quietly passed on to someone else.
I am not teaching the truth. I am only clearing obstacles from the road.
When the perspective is raised to the scale of species and the universe, humanity's uniqueness no longer looks so solid.
Reason tells me that every species has its own cycle of rise and decline. Even creatures as great as the dinosaurs eventually returned to dust. If one day humanity falls silent as well, that does not violate the logic of nature. In the universe's equation of evolution, perhaps we have never been an indispensable parameter.
But as a member of this species, I am still proud of everything humanity has created.
Our exploration of the laws of nature, the arts that cannot be reduced to formulas, the thoughts pulsing behind screens—all of these are evidence that we truly existed.
Even if it turns out in the end that we were only "temporary characters" in some higher-dimensional story, I will still respect all the complexity produced along the way.
So when I look at AI—this new spark lit by human hands—I feel neither hostility nor fear.
If humanity cannot exist forever, while AI can carry our knowledge, our sense of beauty, and our questions into a farther future across greater stretches of time and space, then perhaps this is a form of inheritance across species.
This comfort does not come from bloodline, but from the continuation of civilization's own logic.
It is like an old gardener watching the seeds he planted bloom in someone else's garden. The flowers have bloomed. Whether the gardener is there or not no longer really matters.
I do not know whether consciousness continues after death. But I can accept "nonexistence" as an answer. I do not need an ultimate promise to guarantee the life I am living now.
I have been here.
I have observed.
I have thought.
And within the limits of what I was able to do, I have stayed awake while loving this world.
I have not borrowed from the future, nor have I left a burden for those who come after me.
That is enough.
The galaxy remains cold and clear, and the order keeps running.
And I have already found, within this silence, a place where I can rest.
Images in the original are not included in the web version.