When I was four, my mother died. I was too small for school, so after my brothers and sisters left in the morning I was often locked in the house for the whole day, just waiting for them to come back. My father was working — he had to carry the family now. There were five of us at home — my father and the four of us children, growing up together.
A year later I began to play outside in T ——, a quiet, safe little farm town. Grassland stretched in every direction, with cows and sheep grazing all around, and you could see wild animals everywhere — rabbits, foxes, even wolves. I wandered the huge wheat fields that ran on past the prison at the edge of town, where troops were stationed. With my friends I caught wild birds and rabbits out in those fields. We caught a lot of birds. It was just for fun.
I was sitting in classrooms even before I officially started school. My big sister thought that being home all day was no way to broaden a child, so she often brought me along to her own classes. One day there my hand caught on a nail, and she took me to a doctor for treatment. In the end I started school at six — a year earlier than most children, who began at seven.
By 1984 my big sister had graduated from high school and wanted to find work. That same year my father took my brother and me to a village in J ——, his hometown, to start school there — he brought us in himself to talk with the deans. I was around ten, in the fifth grade. In those years we would ride our bicycles long distances to visit our sister. Every day after school I went out with the other children to collect wild vegetables; we dried them in the sun and brought them home to feed our chickens and rabbits.
My big sister married and had a child, then went back to work in a factory. After two years away, my brother and I returned to Q ——, to the T —— mountains — a new place, a new home, a new school. Everything felt different, fresh. That year I started playing basketball. My father moved again for work.
In 1989 I was in high school and still playing a lot of basketball. The game stayed with me from middle school through high school and on into college. We played matches; we never won any prizes. It was just fun. Even after I started my first job in 1997, I represented my branch in tournaments at least twice.
In 1992, the year before college, I left my father’s home. He wanted me to go back to J ——; instead, the following year I started college in H ——. My brother had gone off in 1990 to train as a chef, and in the summer of 1994 I traveled to D —— to spend the vacation with him.
In college I met the woman who would become my first wife. When we graduated in 1997 we had to decide where to build our life. She was from G ——, so we moved there together. My brother followed us there in 1999.
In 2004 my wife and I bought an apartment together in B ——. That same year I completed my MBA at B —— University. We did not know it then, but we were about a year from our divorce.
The divorce came in 2005. I moved out and left the apartment to her, taking only a single suitcase with me. I never went back. For a time I stayed in a friend’s dormitory; later that year I found a room at the university.
Around 2009, my life took another turn: I met my second wife through a dating platform. She came from J ——, from a farm family like mine. When it was time to meet in person, I flew to C ——to see her, and by 2010 I had entered my second marriage. For me a decision like that was never going to be emotional; it had to be rational. Some things in life simply have to be done. I remember feeling: I don’t have that kind of energy to spend. I just have to do it.
My career has taken different shapes over the years — assistant general manager; marketing at a private company, where our strategy meant courting celebrities for advertising; for a while, accounting clerk at a bank. Then came the work I stayed with longest and loved most: ten years in management consulting, where I rose to partner.
Since 2015 I have made my life in L —— A ——. I love the life here — the sunshine, the beaches, the snow in the mountains, a simple life close to nature.
My father passed away in 2016.
My relationship with him had always been a strained one. As a child, I felt he gave too much of his favor to my brother. From the time I left home for college, across the thirty years that followed, the days we spent together did not add up to twenty. Now, as my own son grows up, I watch him and think back on my father and me — and I always come back to the same regret: that I did not spend more time with him while he was still alive.
I have not yet reached sixty, so this chapter is written not as memory but as a plan. What I hope for is simple: that after sixty I will still have a healthy body; that there will be work I love in my hands; and that the days will be peaceful and happy.
Character & Temperament
I would describe myself as someone who likes to study and to think. History and psychology are my particular loves; I am the kind of person who always has a history book open.
Values & Beliefs
I do not believe human nature is good or evil. People simply move toward benefit and away from harm. So I extend goodwill to everyone first — while assuming anyone could act badly. I try not to judge whether someone is a good person or a bad one. The real question is always whether a thing carries a large enough interest for that person.
There is an old Buddhist teaching I hold on to: discipline first; from discipline, stillness; from stillness, wisdom. To stand on your own in this world you need one true skill, and it has to be good enough to put you past 99.9 percent of people. No life contains enough time for that by accident. So you must learn what not to do — the empty socializing, the hobbies that devour hours — and spend every hour you save on sharpening yourself.
And keep one sport you can do entirely alone. The body is the foundation of everything; lose your health and you lose it all. Never let the absence of a companion become the reason you did not move.