Take Risks, with Courage

I recently finished a book that had been on my list for ages but I'd kept putting off: Kon-Tiki. Before opening it, I knew nothing about it. Like most people, my first encounter with this title came through the poet Hai Zi.

I barely read poetry. Poetry to me is like a magnificent palace — I occasionally walk by, marveling at its splendor, but my own dullness and lack of confidence keep me from stepping inside. Still, I've heard of a few poets, and among contemporary Chinese poets, one name is impossible to ignore: Hai Zi.

As a kid who never liked reading, the Hai Zi in textbooks didn't leave much of an impression. My real introduction came through listening to Zhou Yunpeng's song "September." Curious about its meaning, I looked it up online and learned that Zhou Yunpeng is actually a blind singer, and the lyrics are from Hai Zi's poem of the same name.

By that point, I'd already developed some mystical leanings (even more so now). Works that seem to say something yet leave you unsure what — those fascinate me the most.

In the public eye, Hai Zi was a prodigy who entered Peking University at 15 as the top liberal arts student in his province. His most famous lines come from a poem that reads almost like a suicide note: "Facing the sea, spring warmth and flowers blooming." Two months after writing those words, he lay down on the railroad tracks and ended his life. In his final moments, he carried four books: The Bible, Walden, Kon-Tiki, and Selected Novels of Conrad.

To me, these four books share something in common: solitude. The loneliness of Jesus in the Bible; Thoreau's solitary life at Walden Pond; the author of Kon-Tiki drifting on a raft across the Pacific for over three months; Conrad's stranger-in-a-strange-land predicament.

Perhaps in Hai Zi's world, he was lonely. After wishing us all happiness, he chose to rush toward a faraway place where the sea stretches out and spring flowers bloom.

I don't endorse seeking one's faraway through such means — being alive carries more possibility. But what's done is done; all we can do is try to understand. What drove him to take that final step is something I find curious.

Setting aside theories about qigong gone wrong or schizophrenia, perhaps the books he carried in his final moments offer some clues.

The Bible goes without saying — it's the cornerstone of Western culture. Given its length and intense religious themes, I'm not yet ready to open it.

Walden is Thoreau's collection of writings from his time living in seclusion at Walden Pond. I've leafed through it, but the overly practical discussions didn't grab my interest. Especially after learning some trivia about Thoreau — his "seclusion" apparently involved regular parties with friends and trips to his mother's house for laundry. After that, I lost any desire to pick it up again.

Given my already overflowing list of unread novels, Conrad would have to wait too.

That left only Kon-Tiki.

I love the name. More precisely, I love all imagery associated with solitude — a lone tree in an endless wheat field, a solitary bird soaring in a boundless sky, or Hai Zi's line: "riding alone across the grasslands." Perhaps it's because modern society is so crowded that solitude gives me a different kind of feeling.

Kon-Tiki was written by the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl, documenting how his crew of six set out from Peru in South America, crossed the Pacific Ocean, and eventually reached the Polynesian islands in the south-central Pacific. Their vessel was nothing more than a raft — one built to match descriptions from 1,500 years ago.

The expedition began because Heyerdahl, after extensive research, theorized that 1,500 years ago, a group of people had sailed west from Peru on rafts across the Pacific to reach Polynesia. But the academic world unanimously declared that crossing the Pacific on a raft was utterly impossible. No one accepted his theory.

So he recruited five adventure-loving friends, plus a parrot, and with various willing (and unwilling) help, attempted to perfectly replicate the 1,500-year-old scenario. No matter how you look at it, this was also a suicide mission. I wonder whether Hai Zi, too, was driven by a need to prove something when he took his final step.

It was undeniably a mad journey. Though some people helped, no one believed they'd succeed — surely they'd end up in a shark's cold stomach or sink forever to the bottom of the Pacific.

Since the book exists, the ending needs little spoiling. They experienced fantastical adventures on the Pacific — no less extraordinary than Life of Pi or Robinson Crusoe. After losing one crew member — the parrot — the six men successfully landed on a small Polynesian island.

As they traveled and signs of land gradually appeared, I found myself growing happy for them. It reminded me of old José Arcadio leading his people through the wilderness to discover Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The first eight chapters cover the expedition from formation to successful completion. From the theory being rejected, to meeting each team member, to floating on the Pacific, to finally dancing with Polynesian locals on the island.

But in the final supplementary chapter, the author details events before and after the expedition. How he discovered the scientific establishment's error; how rigid and dogmatic academia was, tolerating no questioning; how even after proving them wrong through practice, he was met with even deeper skepticism.

Whether events truly happened as he described, or whether he was merely defending his theory with convenient arguments — that's for academics to debate. At minimum, he did everything possible to prove his theory's viability, and regardless of whether the conclusion was right or wrong, his effort deserves respect.

Both during and after reading this book, I was struck by how spectacularly rich this world is — all my troubles were forgotten. But then I thought: the world is so rich, yet my own life is so monotonous. Never mind crossing the Pacific to see creatures I've never encountered — I haven't even seen the stars in ages.

Heyerdahl completed the journey and documented it in many forms. But as his theory sought to prove: before the first successful landing on those islands 1,500 years ago, how many people silently sank to the bottom of the sea?

If the fear of sinking keeps you from stepping onto the raft, you'll never discover new continents. Everything good comes from continuous trial and error, from step-by-step evolution. If evolution holds true, humans ourselves are a product of relentless trial and error.

This makes me think of the first monkey that tried to walk upright, the first person who tried to approach and tame fire. The world I live in was built by predecessors' endless trial and error, piled from failure and futility. Without them, we might still be a group of monkeys huddled in Africa, staring at each other with innocent eyes.

Yet too many people cling to a "winner takes all" mentality, believing only the successful are great, permitting only success and never failure. Over time, some become so afraid of failing that they won't try — even when the cost of failure is merely being laughed at. I used to be this way. Though I respected those who didn't succeed, I was terrified of failing myself, and ended up not doing many things I wanted to do.

This is something I've been trying to change, though I'm currently at the stage of knowing the principle but struggling to act on it.

Seeing how every creature in their journey occupied a link in the food chain — humans included — made me realize that instability is actually the norm. Living with risk is the default. Stability is a human invention.

I've never much liked the word "settled." It seems to say: things are this way, and they will always be this way. No more possibilities, no more vitality — like a frail, aging person on the verge of death, wanting nothing more, just waiting for the final moment.

So, my friend — take risks, with courage!

On the grassland where the deaths of all gods were witnessed, wildflowers bloom
The wind far beyond the faraway is farther than the faraway
My strings weep, no tears remain
I return this faraway distance to the grassland
One is called Horse Head, one is called Horse Tail
My strings weep, no tears remain

The faraway only gathers wildflowers in death
The bright moon hangs high like a mirror over the grassland, reflecting a thousand years
My strings weep, no tears remain
Riding alone across the grassland

— "September," Hai Zi