“Others speak first and then act. I act first and then speak.”
— Wen Yiduo

Easy to Say, Hard to Know; Easy to Know, Hard to Do

People live in the world, speaking, thinking, acting.
The title of this article is my reflection on human interaction.

Speech — talking — is one of humanity’s most basic communication functions.
Humans are a peculiar species.
As lamented in “The Village Teacher,”
information exchange can only rely on throats vibrating and propagating through sound waves,
yet culture has somehow been passed down and developed for thousands of years.

Knowledge — thought — usually can only be expressed through speech.
After starting work,
quite a few friends lament that there are rarely opportunities to have deep exchanges with others anymore.
They occasionally miss the late-night talks in school —
even though most of the time it was about studies, teachers, daily campus life,
there were also always discussions about life, the world, and values that don’t happen in an adult’s solo life.

Action — behavior — is often overlooked because it’s too concrete.
But action is the most ironclad evidence of one’s stance among these three.
Whether in the extreme “a father’s love drives a child to death” with mismatched expression and action,
or in everyday “playing together during the day, secretly studying at night” that reveals true cognition —
all of them speak to the value of action itself.

So, easy to say, hard to know; easy to know, hard to do.

Study · Education Changes Fate

In my school days,
after the exam everyone would compare answers,
and praise each other:
“Ugh, I bombed this one!”
“Brother Zhou you must be first again!”
“I’m a loser student, just a third-rate grade!”
Then when the results came out,
the ranking competition got even fiercer.

For studying and education,
all you have to say is repeat “education changes fate” or grumble “ah, way too involuted.”

But thinking that “education can change fate” is actually rarer (though common in China).
“Poor Economics” mentions that
statistically, the wealthier you are, the more you’re willing to invest in education.
This is also a kind of ideological preference.

Action itself is even harder.
Modern students besides being lazy also have to resist the temptation of electronics.
Adults are the same.
Many people have not only given up the habit of reading, but also given up the curiosity to explore the unknown.

So truly carrying out “education changes fate”
can’t just rely on slogans.
It also requires continuous effort with unity of knowledge and action.

Career · When Poor, Look After Yourself; When Successful, Help the World

During interviews, besides professional questions,
I have two personal questions I like to ask.
One is “Tell me about your favorite project you’ve worked on,”
and another is “What kind of person do you want to become in the future?”
Even though sometimes I get off-topic answers,
more than once I’ve seen a fire of enthusiasm ignite in someone’s eyes.

Public opinion about work itself is constantly shifting.
From “supporting and promoting wolf culture” to “guarding against the bloodsucking 996 capital” is only a few years apart.
But among the masses riding the waves of both sides of public opinion,
how many people have really thought about their own career, stage, perseverance, uniqueness, hardships, and achievements?
Among those people, even fewer can stick to independent thinking and walk a path without regrets.

When chatting with Mia before, we mentioned an interesting phenomenon I call “the silent majority.”
In our observation, a group’s view of the company is often uniform, but the individuals’ actions are complex.
For example, in a team where the mainstream view is unfavorable to the company, the employees who think the company is actually pretty good won’t speak up, to avoid being isolated.
But the same team can also show resilience, can analyze and solve workplace difficulties objectively, and keep the attrition rate within an acceptable range.

So on the path of climbing the career mountain,
complex public opinion will interfere with one’s thinking,
but in the end the most certain thing is action taken one step at a time after casting aside distractions and setting one’s cognition straight.

Love · This Simple Yet Intense Feeling Dominates an Entire Life

When chatting with friends, we often joke “a man’s mouth is a lying ghost.”
The “It turns out the clown was me” simp 2.0 meme that went popular last year
is essentially also drama-loaded by inconsistency between mouth and mind.

“New Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies Dream” sings:
Do you want to ask till it’s clear,
or do you want to pretend to be confused?
Knowing more knowing less, hard to know enough…

The same event,
overlaid with the three of say, know, do,
has eight possible truth values.

So to avoid misunderstandings, speculation, suspicion and classical melodrama,
one feasible path is unifying the three:
What I say, what I know, what I do.

But of those people who parrot “any relationship not aimed at marriage is fooling around,”
how many really think this way?
And how many really can do this?

Life and Death · Heavier Than Mount Tai, or Lighter Than a Feather

Just like I lamented in 《The Vanishing Moment》,
I’ve never been able to fully accept the fact that “all men must die.”

With this Sword of Damocles hanging over my head,
I execute a strategy of “tactically attentive, strategically dismissive.”

“Death is not to be feared.”
I say things like this.
At the same time, lying in bed every day looking at the ceiling,
I begin my thrice-daily self-examination:
“What am I eating tomorrow morning? Lunch? Dinner?”
Oh sorry, I’m hungry, my thoughts wandered. Let me start over with my thrice-daily self-examination:
“What have I said today that I could have expressed better?
What thoughts have I had that I shouldn’t have?
How should I change my actions in the future?”

Today’s me is better than yesterday’s me. Worth it.

Knowledge and Action United, Speech and Action Not United

When you truly observe life,
you sense that “easy to say, hard to know; easy to know, hard to do” is like a law of the universe
that constrains human interaction.

If you’re someone with unity of knowledge and action,
then congrats,
you’re currently in the perfect state I envision.
All that’s left is to adjust what you say,
and just express yourself.

If you realize that “the knowing me” and “the acting me” are partially split,
also congrats,
your consciousness has gotten stronger and can observe your own speech and behavior transcendently.

But if the camera turns the other way,
and we observe the masses,
we’ll see individuals trembling all over the earth.
Their “speaking me,” “knowing me,” and “doing me”
are either hidden, tangled, unified, or ignored.

At this moment, taking out the matchless martial arts manual,
the line on it expounding “unify action with cognition, but don’t have to say it out loud” leaps out:

Unity of knowledge and action,
Disunity of words and action.

(end)