Long, and somehow also brief
This past year felt both unbearably long and over in a flash.
The “long” part came from losing control of my emotions.
I once saw a short video explaining the so-called wild horse effect. The story went something like this: a snake was slithering along and accidentally got cut by a saw lying on the ground. Instantly enraged, it turned around and bit the serrated blade. That only left its mouth bleeding. In pain, it took the saw as a grave provocation, flew into a complete rage, and wrapped its body around the blade with all its strength, trying to strangle this enemy to death. But the harder it squeezed, the deeper the teeth cut in, until it was finally sliced apart.
There is another familiar example too: the whole clash between Xibei’s Jia Guolong and Luo Yonghao. No need to retell it in detail here. That was also a textbook case of the same thing.
Looking back over the past few years, I can see that I was stuck in that trap myself. I was no different from that snake reacting far beyond the actual injury, or from that stubborn old Jia who refused to admit he was wrong. Once I began to notice the pattern, the emotional chaos slowly started to fade. Things that once seemed to demand huge amounts of time and energy no longer feel nearly as important.
As for the “brief” part—well, that is time itself. It races past before you can hold onto it. The moon is still the same moon, the mountains are still the same mountains, but the boy from back then is no longer the same boy. Flowers may bloom again, but people do not get a second youth. That is the kind of brevity I mean.
These days I jokingly describe myself as a “young old guy.” Why? Because in 2025, both the WHO and China’s National Working Commission on Aging updated the definition of “elderly,” placing that category at 65 and above. By that standard, someone my age still counts as young, which feels perfectly reasonable. Of course, even if I qualify as “young,” my body doesn’t always seem stronger than some actual old-timers. So “young old guy” feels oddly accurate. Fairly vivid too.
What I kept doing
This year, I kept writing and I kept shooting photos.
Over the course of the year, I published 26 blog posts. Most of them were reflections and casual essays. Five came out of tinkering with front-end and back-end work. Another five were lightweight posts about films and music. Overall, the blog was updated far more consistently than it was in 2024, which honestly feels worth celebrating.
My photo site also stayed active. I actually shot a lot this year, but only the images I truly liked made it onto the album site. I deleted plenty of throwaways. To be fair, some of the photos I feel good about might still look like rejects to professionals. That does not matter much to me. I like them, and I want to share them. That is enough, isn’t it?
Last week I was riding with my boss, and he asked what hobbies I had. I froze for a moment. After thinking about it, I realized that between commuting, childcare, meals, and sleep, there did not seem to be much in my life that I pursued with unwavering consistency. I could hardly say, “I love working,” so I gave the very vague answer: “messing around on the computer.”
Looking back now, writing and photography are probably my real hobbies. I am willing to sit down quietly and type here. I am willing to spend time carefully looking through the photos I have taken. Yes, that settles it. Those are my hobbies. And more importantly, they are what I have continued to hold onto.
Living with more intention
This year brought a lot of reflection.
When AI first became a big topic in 2024, I thought it was still a bit like “artificial stupidity.” But in 2025, the arrival of agents completely changed my view. I started learning how to use them and how to embrace them. At the same time, I also kept asking myself whether relying on AI too much is really a good thing. If my brain is already a little rusty, will it just end up being pushed even further to the sidelines?
When I need an answer, is it okay to skip my own exploration entirely and go straight to AI for one? That question still matters to me. So whenever I use it, I try to bring my own thinking into the process. I treat it as a tool that helps me accomplish something, not as something I blindly obey. I need to know what I want. I do not want to simply accept everything it gives me.
In the new year, I want to live more attentively. I want to feel the sun and notice warmth again. We only pass through this human world once, and the whole point is to experience it.
I want to learn more things that are genuinely useful and keep improving my understanding of the world. A person’s level of understanding is usually matched to their ability. Arrogance hardens into rigidity; awareness is what lifts a person upward. Even if I have to talk myself into it, I still want to relearn how to feel, how to accept, and how to understand the people and things around me.
Being clear about where my life energy goes matters too. Only by drawing up something clean and precious to nourish myself can I reach the roots buried deep in my own salty, hardened ground.
A final note for the year
This year taught me what “long” feels like through emotional struggle, and what “brief” feels like through the passing of time. It let me keep faith with what I love through words and images, and it forced me to think more carefully about the balance between AI and myself. Even the joking label of “young old guy” hides a certain clarity about life. And the persistence of writing and photography carries a real affection for ordinary days.
Life is a single trip through the human world. It is meant to be experienced, and understood little by little. Arrogance narrows a person; only openness allows us to keep feeling, accepting, and recognizing the world anew. That is how life gains dimension.
I did not really want to write a year-end summary. It is a dull kind of task. But a year deserves some kind of account, if only to play a quick-cut montage in my own head. And if I was going to do it, I did not want to do it carelessly. So here it is: this long, slightly cumbersome composition.