I. Seeing Myself, Understanding Others

September 24, 2026 · 21:11

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Before starting my PhD, I thought the biggest things I would gain were papers, a degree, and knowledge.

Only after starting did I realize that what mattered most could be summed up in eight Chinese characters:

Seeing myself, understanding others.

1. Seeing Myself

We always think that no one knows us better than we know ourselves.

But over these four years of my PhD, I've increasingly felt that the person who understands me least is me.

Why?

Because the soul lives inside a body. That body carries us through life, through experiences, and into collisions. Yet we're always using this body to look at the world, unable to see the self inside it.

Just as a fish cannot see the water.

A fish swims in water. Water is its whole world. Only when it leaps out does it realize: so I've been in water all along.

Or the way our eyes cannot see themselves.

Our eyes can see everything, but not the eyes themselves. Only by looking in a mirror can we see their shape.

Yohji Yamamoto once said:

You can't see this thing called the “self.” Only when you run into something else and bounce back do you come to understand it.

But if other people can see me, why can't they just tell me? Why do I have to hit a wall?

Because our defenses are too strong.

Someone once told me, “You're a bit cowardly.”

My first reaction wasn't, “Am I really cowardly?”

Instead, it was—

“He doesn't really know me. He doesn't know how strong I am inside, or how much restraint I have. He hasn't been through what I've been through. What gives him the right to say that?”

You see, I wasn't seeing myself. I was just protecting myself with a story. But hitting a wall is different.

Hitting a wall doesn't give you information. It gives you an experience. When someone calls you cowardly, you can argue back. But when being cowardly makes you miss an opportunity, lose a relationship, or pay a price—you can't keep lying to yourself.

So it isn't that hitting a wall is nobler. It's that it leaves you no room to keep lying to yourself. Of course, you can see yourself without going through pain. But that takes exceptional self-awareness, an exceptionally safe environment for feedback, or extraordinary luck. Most people don't have those things. So we often wait until we've hit the wall hard enough for it to hurt before we're willing to turn around and look at ourselves.

Over these four years of my PhD, I was someone who hit the wall hard enough for it to hurt.

I've learned that what people say has two meanings: the one on the surface and the one underneath. The one underneath is what they really mean.

I've learned that too much honesty can hurt other people, because people have boundaries. Pulling someone inside your own boundaries is another way of intruding on theirs.

I've learned that I'm not very bright, and that I have to use simple, laborious methods just to scrape a pass. So I have to work twice as hard.

I've learned that learning and pursuing my interests aren't the goal. Getting things done, and done well, is.

I've learned that what I like and what I'm good at don't necessarily go together. Liking something I'm not good at is painful.

I've come a long way to grasp things I should have understood long ago, to make sense of them, and to understand and change myself—so I can face the road ahead with less fear and more resolve.

Seeing yourself is where change begins.

2. Understanding Others

That's seeing myself. Now, understanding others.

I used to think that understanding how things work mattered far more than understanding people. Social niceties and emotional intelligence struck me as irrational, even hypocritical. I kept wondering: why do people talk around things? Why not just say what they mean?

But over the years, I've slowly realized that understanding people matters just as much as understanding things. As with any research, people can be a subject of study in their own right.

And I came to see that:

It turns out that what people say often has two meanings. One is on the surface, and the other is underneath. When people don't feel safe enough, they can often only say what's on the surface.

It turns out that knowing how to deal with people isn't about becoming slick. It's about making it safer and more comfortable for both of you to express yourselves.

It turns out that people have boundaries, and your excessive honesty can make them uncomfortable. Pulling someone inside your boundaries is another way of intruding on theirs.

It turns out that the hostility you feel from someone comes from their own sense of insecurity.

Over these four years of my PhD, I've learned not only to do research, but also to treat “people” as a subject worth studying.

Because seeing myself requires feedback from others;

and understanding others is what allows me to take that feedback in.

Seeing myself, understanding others.

This is probably the biggest thing I've gained from my PhD.

Not papers. Not a degree.

Finally seeing myself clearly, and finally beginning to understand others.

II. Never Feel Sorry for Yourself

September 25, 2026 · 03:57

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As I approach thirty, a lot is changing inside me. The biggest change is that I'm becoming more mature in how I think. And an unavoidable part of growing up is learning to stop feeling sorry for myself.

On Becoming a Man

I think of myself as an observant person.

I've noticed that men who have been in relationships seem to have a better sense of boundaries with other people. By boundaries, I mean knowing what's appropriate, whether they're dealing with men or women. That's one sign of maturity.

I always seem to be pretending to be “a man.” Or perhaps I don't even know whether I agree that I need to become “a man.” Don't get me wrong—I'm not gay. What I mean is that I used to think men and women were all human beings, and that there shouldn't be a distinction between the sexes.

But that view was wrong. Differences in our bodies and the environments we grow up in mean that men's and women's roles and emotions are bound to be very different. You can't ask a man to fully empathize with a woman's period pain, just as a woman can never fully empathize with the pain of a man being kicked in the groin. From that perspective, I've never agreed with today's “extreme feminism.”

When I say I always seem to be pretending to be “a man,” I mean playing the traditional role of “a man”—playing a “mature” “man.” Unfortunately, I'm not one. Sometimes, when you haven't figured things out yet, you don't have to try so hard to put on a performance. You don't have to step forward to help when a woman is changing a water-cooler bottle. You don't have to help a woman you don't know lift her luggage onto a train's overhead rack. And you certainly don't have to be the one who is always eager and taking the initiative when you're getting to know a woman, acting like “a man.” Sorry, this may not fit the upbeat values people promote these days. But what I mean is, you can wait. Wait a little longer. When you've figured it out, then become a man.

Another difficulty is that, even when I try very hard to pretend to be “a man,” I rarely seem to be recognized as one. As an adult man, I'm only about 163 cm tall. The awkward thing about this height is that neither men nor women see you as “a man.” Thinking about this brings back so many bitter memories. There has been frustration, resentment, effort, and resignation. But now, I don't explain myself anymore, and I don't feel sorry for myself. I can make fun of myself and even find it funny when I think about it. These are all new experiences. That's where I am now.

I think I see things a little more clearly than I used to. What I ask of myself is to become someone others can rely on: someone my parents can depend on, my partner can feel safe with, and my friends can trust. To stop dwelling on past suffering, the cage of the family I grew up in, or the way others see me. In the end, these are all prisons I've built for myself.

From Inner Turmoil to Self-Pity, and from Self-Pity to Understanding

There's a saying: “Pessimists are always right. Optimists keep moving forward.” I think it's only half right. Pessimists dwell on past suffering, and the lessons they draw from it are impossible to argue with. But the people who move forward aren't necessarily optimists. Even a pessimist like me can keep going.

I've always been a pessimist. There have been countless nights when I couldn't sleep. I even have a whole list of things I've tried for insomnia: 999 Ganmaoling cold medicine as a sleeping pill (I thought this was just my own trick, until I recently saw a news report saying that taking 999 could count as drink-driving), melatonin, reading for ten minutes, doing planks, memorizing up to thirty digits with a memory palace, or half a can of beer. If I really can't sleep, I simply stay awake. Staying up all night and then having breakfast the next morning has become routine.

I've met so many smart people that I'm constantly reminded of how slow I am. I worked incredibly hard for the college entrance exam and still only scored four points above the admissions cutoff for first-tier universities. I took part in mathematical modeling competitions for four undergraduate years and never won even a university-level award. When I graduated, three classmates and I agreed to apply to Zhejiang University. All three got in. I was the only one who didn't. I remember studying with my roommate. He went through the postgraduate entrance exam math material three times, while I hadn't even finished it once by the time the exam came. At the end of my master's, I hadn't met the graduation requirements and nearly had to extend my studies. My paper wasn't published until the fourth year. My advisor didn't think much of my work and asked to have his name removed as the corresponding author. During my PhD, I diligently learned algorithms from scratch, but even after publishing one A-tier paper, I still hadn't met the graduation requirements and had to extend my studies.

Then there were the collaborators who stabbed me in the back, the colleagues who kept playing little games to undermine me, the undisguised contempt from more junior students, and all the kind words masking deep contempt and hostility. I think these stories I've left to fester inside me, all those moments of late-night turmoil, have helped me understand people better.